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LIYES AND POETEAITS 



OP 



ALL THE PRESIDENTS 



FROM 



WASHINGTON TO GRANT. 



BY JOHN B. DUFPEY. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

T. S. ARTHUR & SOK 

1876. 






flit 

.1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

T. S. ARTHUR & SON, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



CONTENTS. 



Portraits of all the Presidents. 

A Hundred Years of Progress, 

George Washington, 

John Adams, 

Thomas Jefferson, 

James Madison, 

James Monroe, 

John Quincy Adams, 

Andrew Jackson, 

Martin Van Bur en, . 

William Henry Harrison, 

John Tyler, 

John Knox Polk, 

Zachary Taylor, 

Millard Fillmore, 

Franklin Pierce, 

James Buchanan, 

Abraham Lincoln, . 

Andrew Johnson, 

Ulysses S. Grant, 

Constitution of the United States 

Amendments to the Constitution, 



5 
11 
17 
19 
22 
24 
26 
28 
32 
34 
37 
39 
42 
45 
47 
49 
62 
57 
59 
63 
70 



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A HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS. 

1776-1876. 



^XLY a hundred years — less than two ordinary lifetimes — have 
Q^:^ elapsed since that eventful evening of the 4th of July. 1776, 
"when the •• Declaration of Independence." in which "America planted 
herself between magnificence and ruin."' was read from the steps 
of Independence Hall, in Philadelphia: and when, from the cupola 
of that memorable structure, for two hours was heard, above the 
thunder of cannon, the roll of drums, and the shouts of the assembled 
multitude, the ringing voice of the great beU, joyfully obeying the 
fateful injunction which by some strange conjunction of circumstances 
had been cast upon it, to "proclaim liberty throughout the land unto 
all the inhabitants thereof."' Only a hundred years ! and yet. what 
changes have been wrought in that brief period I Astonishing, mar- 
vellous changes, which have no parallel in the history of the world! 

In contemplating these changes, the citizen of the United States, 
in this, the first centennial year of our national existence, cannot but 
feel his heart swell with pride and satisfaction, as his mind reverts to 
the beginning of that existence, and takes note of our wonderful mater- 
ial improvement since that period, of our progress in arts and sciences, 
of our surprising increase in territory, and of the glorious names we 
have already inscribed upon the record of the world's great men. 

One hundred years ago, when our national independence was 
thought by many far-seeing men to be but a feverish dream, and cer- 



6 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS. 

tainly was a thing to be yet obtained, and that, too, at the cost of ter- 
rible toil and trial, not the wildest and most impracticable visionary of 
the time could have imagined the bright future of the babe just com" 
ing into the world. When that independence was, after seven years of 
struggle and endurance, finally secured to them, the colonies were still 
in a condition from which the most enthusiastic could with difficulty 
augur anything but evil. Their male population had been decimated 
by the fatalities of war. Poverty, discontent, apprehension in regard 
to the future, and uncertainty as to present action, overshadowed 
them with gloom. Stretching along the margin of the Atlantic, they 
showed no more than a narrow white edge on the vast blackness of 
wilderness and savagery behind them. A few military stations had 
been established as the extreme outposts of civilization west of the 
Alleghanies, and the sound of the pioneer's axe might have been hBard 
in the valleys of the Susquehanna and the Mohawk ; but, for the most 
part, the wilderness begun scarcely a hundred miles inland, and 
stretched across the continent to the shores of the Pacific — a land 
given up to beasts of prey and to the red man of the forest. 

Quite distinct in their government, though somewhat loosely held 
together by their articles of confederation, the difierent colonies, and 
especially those of the north and the south, were equally as distinct 
in the characters of their people, and in their special interests, and 
were prone to regard each other with sectional jealousy. Even after 
seven years of united struggle for their common independence had 
modified to a considerable degree their local prejudices, it required 
months and years to finally gather them into a union acceptable to 
all, and which was to ensure their ultimate prosperity. The question 
of slavery, a legacy of discord left them by the mother-country, was 
even then one which threatened to undo all the great work of the Ee- 
volution. The American who has but a slight acquaintance with his 
country's history, will remember how that question, the only one upon 
which to base a substantial doubt as to the perpetuity of the repub- 
lic, year after year increased in virulence, and finally brought about a 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS, 7 

contest whicli deluged the land in the blood of those who should have 
been brothers. Happily, even in this respect, progress has led us 
through manifold peril into the harbor of security, and the one great 
cause of fatal dissension being now remoTed, there need belittle doubt 
but that, with ordinary prudence, the bonds of union will grow 
stronger with every year of our national existence. 

At the beginning of the Eevolution, the territorial limits of the 
colonies embraced a region containing, in round numbers, some 820,- 
000 square miles. Now, our vast territory of nearly four millions of 
square miles, stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the 
St. Lawrence on the east, and from the Arctic Ocean, we may al- 
most say, on the west, to Mexico, which forms our southern border. 
Our population, estimated, in 1776. at about two millions, num- 
bers to-day more than forty millions, distributed through thirty- 
four states and ten organized and two unorganized territories. Such 
a vast expansion, and so rapid an increase in population, in so short 
a period, have no parallel in the history of the world. This wonder- 
ful increase is due. however, not to ordinary causes, but to the fact 
that our free institutions and fertile prairies have drawn to our shores 
so many of the poor and oppressed of every nation. Many of our 
western states, especially, owe to the constant in-pouring of immi- 
grants their extraordinary transformation, within the memory of those 
who have scarcely passed the meridian of life, from howling wilder- 
nesses to populous republics, the seats of the most advanced civiliza- 
tion, where religion, art, and science seem almost as much at home as 
in the thousand-year-old states of Europe. 

A hundred years ago, the mail between New York and Philadel- 
phia was carried by men on horseback. Now. the mail system of the 
United States, of which Franklin was the founder, has become a 
complicated net-work of routes, to which the whole world can present 
no parallel for extent or efficiency. Mail-trains, sometimes three, 
four, and five a day, flash between our large cities, bearing tons of 
letters and newspapers. The era of the lumbering stage-coach, once 



8 A HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS. 

the supposed perfection of rapid transit, has come and departed 
within the last hundred years ; and now a ceaseless stream of 'traveL by 

a method which the most ingenious of men. neither at that time, nor? 
indeed, for half a century later, could have even imagined, passes to 
and fro, in every direction, through the entire length and breadth of 
the land, over those wonderful roads that seem to bind the States to- 
gether with bonds of steel. Time and distance are well-nigh annihil- 
ated by steam, of whose tremendous power scarcely anything was 
known at the date of the Declaration of Independence. Magnificent 
palace-boats ply our rivers and lakes, where then the rude canoe of 
the red man. or. perhaps, the ungainly keel-boat of the white, was the 
only mode of transit. Distances which it then took weeks to accom- 
plish, are now passed over in a single day. In the matter of trans. 
mitting intelligence, still greater marvels have come to pass. T\'e 
can now not only send messages on the wings of the lightning to the 
most distant and outlying points in our own land, but can also quietly 
sit down to breakfast, and read in our morning papers of events 
which transpired the previous day in London, or Paris, or even Cal- 
cutta. And it is the boast of the American people, that the first 
successful steamboat made her trial trip in American waters, and also 
that Morse, who gave to the electric telegraph its practical value, was 
a fellow-countryman. 

In the matter of newspapers, too. what a mighty change has taken 
place within the centennial which we this year celebrate ! In 1776, 
there were in all the colonies but thirty-seven newspapers, and among 
them, we believe, not one daily. To-day our news^Dapers are num- 
bered by thousands, with at least one daily in every thriving and en* 
terprising town. 

The most noteworthy progress in the United States, it is to be ob- 
served, has thus far been in the line of mechanical ingenuity. Our 
agricultural implements, for instance, are everywhere acknowledged 
to be marvels of their kind, and by their novelty and perfect adapta- 
bility bid fair to revolutionize the agricultural labor-systems of the 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS. 9 

world. The sewing-machine, that wonderful triumph of patience and 
ingenuity, — and the cotton-gin, another remarkable invention, which 
has exercised so weighty an influence on our material prosperity, by 
enabling us to command the cotton-supply of the world, — are both 
the offspring of American mechanical genius, and of the century 
just completed. These, with the telegraph, and the improvements 
made by our mechanics in other machinery, by which our locomotive 
builders, for example, are everywhere in demand, abundantly testify 
to the astonishing progress of America in this direction. Nor should 
we forget the unparalleled development exhibited in our manufactures, 
and in our mines of coal, iron, gold and silver, in which we rank among 
the leading nations of the earth. 

But, great as has been our progress in this line, American art, lit, 
erature, and science, have advanced with almost equal rapidity. The 
poetry of Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Whittier; the prose of Irving 
Prescott, Hawthorne, Emerson ; the scientific discoveries of Morse, 
Morton, Henry, Maury ; the paintings of Allston, Page, Cole, Church ' 
the sculptures of Powers, Greenoagh, Story, Hosmer, and of hosts 
of others in every branch of literature, science and art, — have ob: 
tained a permanent reputation, not only at home, but also in the en- 
tire civilized world. 

In education, too, what a marvellous advance the past century will 
show ! Our almost countless institutions of learning, some of them 
such as any country might be proud of, and all developing with mar^ 
vellous rapidity a perfection that promises soon to put them on an 
equality with the noblest of similar institutions, which in the old 
world have had a thousand years of growth, may nearly every one 
be claimed as the product of free and independent America. Our 
common schools, securing to every child born within our borders the 
elements of education, though their foundations were undoubtedly laid 
long before the Declaration of Independence, may also, in their present 
admirable, though, perhaps, still far from perfect development, be 
called the fruit of the first century of American progress. 



10 A HUNDRED YEABS OF PROGRESS, 

Our limited space, however, forbids ns from going further into the 
details of American advancement during the centennial which the 
current year brings to a close. We have briefly indicated some of 
the more striking features of that advancement, and it will require 
very slight reflection on the part of a person of ordinary intelligence 
to derive from our suggestions material with which to fill up the out- 
line we have presented. Now that our beloved country has at length 
reached a point where the path to full and perfect unity lies plain 
before her, we do not see why the progress of the marvellous century 
through which she has just passed, may not be repeated, with even 
fourfold more wonderful results, in the next centennial of her exist- 
ence. Let us hope and pray that it may be so, and that, to use the 
pregnant words of President Lincoln, in her continued progress, 
^^ government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth." 



P3 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



|6j' IKST President of tlie United States, was born in Westmore- 
land County, Virginia, on the 22d of February, 1T32. His 
father died when he was in his eleventh year, leaving him in 
the care of his mother, a woman of marked strength of character. 
She was worthy of her trust. From her he acquired that self- 
restraint, love of order, and strict regard for justice and fair dealing, 
which, with his inherent probity and truthfulness, formed the basis 
of a character rarely equalled for its simple, yet commanding 
nobleness. 

Apart from his mother's training, the youthful Washington re- 
ceived only the ordinary country-school education of the time. He 
had no inclination for any but the most practical studies. In these 
he was remarkably precocious. When barely sixteen, Lord Fairfax 
engaged him to survey his vast estates lying in the wilderness west 
of the Blue Eidge. So satisfactory was his performance of this 
task, that, on its completion, he was appointed Public Surveyor. 
This ofi&ce he held for three years, acquiring considerable pecuniary 
benefits, as well as a knowledge of the country, which was of value 
to him in his subsequent military career. 

When only nineteen, Washington was appointed ^Military Inspec- 
tor of one of the Districts into which Virginia was then divided. In 
November, 1753, he was sent by Governor Dinwiddle on a mission 
to the French posts, near the Ohio Eiver, to ascertain the designs 
of France in that quarter. It was a mission of hardship and peril, 
performed with rare prudence, sagacity and resolution. Its brilliant 
success laid the foundation of his fortunes. "From that time,''' says 
Irving, ''Washington was the rising hope of Virginia." 

11 



12 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Of Washington's services in tlie resulting war, we cannot speak 
in detail. An unfortunate military expedition to the frontier was 
followed by a campaign under Braddock, whom he accompanied as 
aid-de-camp, with the rank of colonel, in his march against Fort 
Duquesne. That imprudent general, scorning the advice of his 
youthful aid, met disastrous defeat and death. In the battle, Wash- 
ington's coat was pierced by four bullets. His bravery and presence 
of mind, alone, saved the army from total destruction. 

Washington, on his return, was appointed commander in chief of 
all the troops of the colony. This was in 1756, when he was but 
little more than twenty-six years of age. Having led the Tirginia 
troops in Forbes' expedition, by which Fort Duquesne was captured, 
he resigned his commission, and, in January, 1756, married Mrs. 
Martha Custiss, and settled down at Mt. Yernon. 

The fifteen years following his marriage, were, to Washington, 
years of such happiness as is rarely accorded to mortals. It was the 
halcyon period of his life. His home was the centre of a generous 
hospitality, where the duties of a busy planter and of a Judge of the 
County Court were varied by rural enjoyments and social intercourse. 
He managed his estates with prudence and economy. He slurred 
over nothing, and exhibited, even then, that rigid adherence to 
system and accuracy of detail, which subsequently marked his per- 
formance of his public duties. 

In the difficulties which presently arose between Great Britain 
and her American colonies, Washington sympathized deeply with 
the latter, and took an earnest, though not specially prominent part 
in those movements which finally led to the War of Independence. 
In the first general Congress of the Colonies, which met in Philadel- 
phia, on the Fifth of September, 1774, we find the name of Wash- 
ington among the Yirginia delegates. As to the part he took in 
that Congress, we can only judge from a remark made by Patrick 
Henry, also a delegate : '' Colonel Washington," said the great 
orator, ''was undoubtedly the greatest man on that floor, if you 
speak of solid information and sound judgment." 

In the councils of his native province, we also get glimpses of his 
calm and dignified presence. And he is ever on the side of the 
colonies, — moderate, yet resolute, hopeful of an amicable adjustment 
of difficulties, yet advocating measures looking to a final appeal to 
arms. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 13 

At length the storm broke. The Battle of Lexington called the 
whole country to arms. While in the East the rude militia of New 
England beleaguered Boston with undisciplined but stern determina- 
tion, Congress, in May, 1775, met a second time in Philadelphia. A 
Federal Union was formed, and an army called for. As chairman 
of the various committees on military affairs, Washington drew up 
most of the rules and regulations of the army, and devised measures 
for defence. The question now arose — By whom was the army to 
be led? Hancock, of Massachusetts, was ambitious of the place. 
Sectional jealousies showed themselves. Happily, however, Johnson 
of Maryland, rising in his seat, nominated Washington. The elec- 
tion was by ballot, and unanimous. Modestly expressing sincere 
doubts as to his capability, Washington accepted the position with 
thanks, but refused to receive any salary. "I will keep an exact 
account of my expenses," he said. ''These I doubt not Congress 
will discharge. That is all I desire." 

On the 12th of June he received his commission. Writing a ten- 
der letter to his wife, he rapidly prepared to start on the following 
day to the army before Boston. He was now in the full vigor of 
manhood, forty-three years of age, tall, stately, of powerful frame, 
and commanding presence. " As he sat his horse with manly grace," 
says Irving, ''his military bearing delighted every eye, and wherever 
he went the air rung with acclamations." 

On his way to the army, Washington met the tidings of the Battle 
of Bunker Hill. When told how bravely the militia had acted, a 
load seemed lifted from his heart. " The liberties of the country are 
safe ! " he exclaimed. On the 3d of July he took command of the 
troops. It was not until March, 1776, that the siege of Boston 
ended, in the withdrawal of the British forces. Washington's ad- 
mirable conduct of this siege drew forth the enthusiastic applause of 
the nation. Congress had a gold medal struck, bearing the efiSgy of 
Washington as the Deliverer of Boston. 

Hastening to defend New York from threatened attack, Wash- 
ington there received, on the 9th of July, 1776, a copy of the 
"Declaration of Independence," adopted by Congress five days pre- 
viously. . On the 27th of the following month, occurred the disas- 
trous Battle of Long Island, the misfortunes of which were retrieved, 
however, by Washington's admirable retreat, one of the most brilliant 
achievements of the war. Again defeated at White Plains, he was 



14 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS, 

compelled to retire across the Jersies. On tlie Tth of December he 
passed the Delaware, at the head of a dispirited army of less than 
four thousand effective men, many of them without shoes, and leav- 
ing tracks of blood in the snow. This was the darkest period of the 
war. But suddenly, as if inspired, Washington, in the midst of a 
driving storm, on Christmas night, re-crossing the Delaware, now 
filled with floating ice, gained in rapid succession the brilliant vic- 
tories of Trenton and Princeton, thus changing the entire aspect of 
affairs. Never were victories better timed. The waning hopes of 
the people in their cause and their commander were at once restored 
as if by magic. 

It is not possible, in this necessarily brief sketch, to give the details 
of the agonizing struggle in which Washington and his little army 
were now involved. Superior numbers and equipments often in- 
flicted upon him disasters which would have crushed a less resolute 
spirit. Cheered, however, by occasional glimpses of victory, and 
wisely taking advantage of what his troops learned in hardship 
and defeat, he was at length enabled, by one sagacious and deeply- 
planned movement, to bring the war virtually to a close, in the 
capture of the British army under Cornwallis, at Yorktown, on the 
15th of October. 1781. 

The tidings of the surrender of Cornwallis filled the country with 
joy. The lull in the activity of both Congress and the people was 
not viewed with favor by TTashington. It was a period of peril. 
Idleness in the army fostered discontents there, which at one time 
threatened the gravest mischief. It was only by the utmost exertion 
that Washington induced the malcontents to turn a deaf ear to those 
who were attempting, as he alleged, ••to open the flood-gates of 
civil discord, and deluge our rising empire with blood." 

In January, 1783, a treaty of peace was arranged at Paris, by 
which the complete Independence of the United States was secured. 
On the 23d of December following, U^ashington formally resigned 
his command. The very next morning, he hastened to his beloved 
Mt. Yernon, arriving there that evening, in time to enjoy the festiv- 
ities of the occasion. 

Washington was not long permitted to enjoy his retirement. In- 
deed, his solicitude for the perpetuity of the political fabric he had 
helped to raise, he could not have shaken off, if he would. Uncon- 
sciouslv, it mio'ht have been, bv his letters to his old friends still in 



GEORGE -WASHINGTON. 15 

pTiblic life, he continued to exercise a powerful influence on national 
affairs. He was one of the first to propose a remodeling of the 
Articles of Confederation, which were now acknowledged to be in- 
sufficient for their purpose. At length, a convention of delegates 
from the several States, to form a new Constitution, met at Philadel- 
phia, in May, 1787. Washington presided over its session, which was 
long and stormy. After four months of deliberation was formed that 
Constitution, under which, with some subsequent amendments, we 
now live. 

When the new Constitution was finally ratified, Washington was 
called to the Presidency by the unanimous voice of the people. In 
April, 1787, he set out from Mt. Yernon to New York, the seat of 
Government, to be inaugurated. •• His progress/"' says Irving, '-was 
a continuous ovation. The ringing of bells and the roaring of can- 
non proclaimed his course. Old and young, women and children, 
thronged the highways to bless and welcome him." His inaugura- 
tion took place on the 13th, before an immense multitude. 

The eight years of Washington's Administration were years of 
trouble and difficulty. The two parties which had sprung up — the 
-Federalist and the Eepublican — w^ere greatly embittered against 
each other, each charging the other with the most unpatriotic de- 
signs. No other man than Washington could have carried the 
country safely through so perilous a period. His prudent, firm, yet 
conciliatory spirit, aided by the love and veneration with which the 
people regarded him, kept down insurrection and silenced discontent. 

That he passed through this trying period safely, cannot but be a 
matter of astonishment. The angry partisan contests, to which we 
have referred, were of themselves suf&cient to dishearten any com- 
mon man. Even Washington .was distrustful of the event, so fiercely 
were the partisans of both parties enlisted — the Federalists clamor- 
ing for a stronger government, the Eepublicans for additional checks 
on the power already tatrusted to the Executive. Besides, the 
Eevolution then raging in France became a source of contention. 
The Federalists sided with England, who was bent on crushing that 
revolution ; the Eepublicans, on the other hand, sympathized deeply 
with the French people : so that between them both, it was with 
extreme difficulty that the President could prevent our young Ee- 
public, burdened with debt, her people groaning under taxes neces- 
sarily heavy, and with finances, commerce, and the industrial arts 



16 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

in a condition of chaos, from being dragged into a fresh war with 
either France or England. 

But, before retiring from the Presidency, Washington had the 
happiness of seeing many of the difficulties from which he had appre- 
hended so much, placed in a fair way of final adjustment. A finan- 
cial system was developed, which lightened the JDurden of public 
debt, and revived the drooping energies of the people. The country 
progressed rapidly. Immigrants flocked to our shores, and the 
regions west of the Alleghanies began to fill up. New states claimed 
admission, and were received into the Union,— Vermont, in 1791; 
Kentucky, in 1792 ; and Tennessee, in 1796 ; so that, before the 
close of Washington's second term the original thirteen states had 
increased to sixteen. 

Having served two Presidential terms, Washington, declining 
another election, returned once more to Mt. Yernon, ''that haven 
of repose to which he had so often turned a wistful eye," bearing 
with him the love and gratitude of his countrymen, to whom, in his 
memorable ''Farewell Address," he bequeathed a legacy of prac- 
tical political wisdom, which it will be well for them to remember 
and profit by. At Mt. Yernon he found constant occupation in the 
super^dsion of his various estates. It was while taking his usual 
round on horseback to look after his farms, that, on the 12th of 
December, 1799, he encountered a cold, winter storm. He reached 
home chill and damp. The next day he had a sore throat, with 
some hoarseness. By the morning of the I4th he could scarcely 
swallow. '*I find I am going," said he to a friend. "I believed 
from the first that the attack would be fatal." That night, between 
ten and eleven, he expired, without a struggle or a sigh, in the 
sixty-eighth year of his age. Three da.ys afterwards his remains 
were deposited in the family tombs at Mt. Yernon, where they still 
repose. 

Washington left a reputation on which there is no stain. " His 
character," says Irving, ''possessed fewer inequalities, and a rarer 
union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one man. -^^ -^ * 
It seems as if Providence had endowed him in a pre-eminent degree 
with the qualities requisite to fit him for the high destiny he was 
called upon to fulfill." 



JOHN ADAMS, 



'^^ECOND President of the United States, was born at Braintree, 
now Quincy, Mass., October 19t]i, 1735. Graduating from 
Harvard in 1755, lie studied law, defraying his expenses by 
teaching. In 1764, having meanwhile been admitted to the bar, he 
married Miss Abigail Smith, a lady whose energy of character con- 
tributed largely to his subsequent advancement. 

As early as 1761, we find young Adams looking forward, with 
prophetic vision, to American Independence. When the memorable 
Stamp Act was passed, he joined heart and soul in opposition to it. 
A series of resolutions which he drew up against it, was adopted by 
more than forty towns in the Province. He took the advanced 
ground that it was absolutely void — Parliament having no right to 
tax the Colonies. 

The rise of the young lawyer was now rapid. When, in 1774, the 
first Colonial Congress met, at Philadelphia, Adams was one of the 
five delegates from Massachusetts. In that Congress he took a 
prominent part. He it was who, on the 6th of May, 1776, boldly 
advanced upon the path to Independence, by moving '' the adoption 
of such measures as would best conduce to the happiness and safety 
of the American people." It was Adams who, a month later, 
seconded the resolution of Lee, of Yirginia, "that these United 
States are, .... and ought to be, independent." He, too, it was, 
who, with Jefferson, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, drew up that 
famous "Declaration of Independence," which, adopted by Congress 
on the 4th of July, 1776, decided a question, "greater, perhaps, than 
ever was or will be decided anywhere." 

After years of gloom and trial, on the 21st of January, 1783, he 

17 



18 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS, 

assisted in the conclusion of a treaty of peace, by which Great 
Britain acknowledged the complete independence of the United 
States. On the previous October, he had achieved what he ever 
regarded as the greatest success of his life — the formation of a 
treaty of peace and alliance with Holland, which had a most im- 
portant bearing on the negotiations leading to the final adjustment 
with England. 

United States Minister to England from 1785 to 1788, and first 
Yice-President during the Administration of Washington, Mr. Adams 
was himself inaugurated President, on the 4th of March, 1797, hav- 
ing been elected over Jefferson by a small majority. 

He came into of&ce at a critical period. The conduct of the 
French Directory, in refusing to receive our embassadors, and in 
trying to injure our commerce by unjust decrees, excited intense ill- 
feeling, and finally led to what is known as ''the Quasi War" with 
France. Congress now passed the so-caUed ''Alien and Sedition 
Laws," by which, extraordinary and, it is alleged, unconstitutional 
powers were conferred upon the President. Though the apprehended 
war was averted, the odium of these laws effectually destroyed the 
popularity of Adams, who, on running for a second term was defeat- 
ed by Mr. Jefferson. On the 4th of March, 1801, he retired to 
private life on his farm near Quincy. 

By a singular coincidence, the dea+h of Mr. Adams and that of 
his old political rival, Jefferson, took place on the same day, and 
almost at the same hour. Stranger still, it was on July the 4th, 
1826, whilst bells were ringing and cannon roaring, to celebrate the 
fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, their own 
immortal production, that these two men passed away. Mr. Adams 
w^as asked if he knew what day it was. " Oh. yes ! '' he exclaimed, 
*•' It is the Fourth of July. God bless it I God bless you all ! It is 
a great and glorious day ! " And soon after quietly expired, in the 
ninety-first year of his age. 

Mr. ^.dams possessed a vigorous and polished intellect, and was 
one of the most upright of men. His character was one to command 
respect, rather than to win affection. There was a certain lack of 
warmth in his stately courtesy, which seemed to forbid approach. 
Yet nobody, we are told, could know him intimately, without ad- 
miring the simplicity and truth which shone in all his actions. 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



•^'rp HOMAS JEFFEESON, who succeeded Adams as President, 
6^ was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Ya., April 2d, 
1743. Passing through college, he studied law, and, in 1767, 
commenced practice. In 1769, he was elected to the Yirginia Legis- 
lature. Three years later, he married Mrs. Martha Skelton, a rich, 
handsome, and accomplished young widow, with whom he went to 
reside in his new mansion at Monticello. 

For years the breach between England and her colonies had been 
rapidly widening. Jefferson earnestly advocated the right of the 
latter to local self-government, and wrote a pamphlet on the subject, 
which attracted much attention on both sides of the Atlantic, By 
the spring of 1775 the colonies were in revolt. We now find Jeffer- 
son in the Continental Congress, — the youngest member save one. 
His arrival had been anxiously awaited. He had the reputation '' of 
a matchless pen." Though silent on the floor, in committee *he was 
prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive." Early in June, 1776, a Com- 
mittee, with Jefferson as chairman, was appointed to draw up a 
''Declaration of Independence." Unanimously urged by his asso- 
ciates to write it, he did so, Franklin and Adams, only, making a few 
verbal alterations. Jefferson has been charged with plagiarism in 
the composition of this ever-memorable paper. Volumes have been 
written on the subject ; but those who have investigated the closest, 
declare that the Mecklenburg Declaration, from which he was 
charged with plagiarism, was not then in existence. Jefferson dis- 
tinctly denies having seen it. Probably, in preparing it, he used 
many of the popular phrases of the time ; and hence it was, that it 

19 



20 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

seized so quickly and so irresistibly upon the public heart. It was 
the crystallized expression of the spirit of the age. 

Chosen a second time to Congress, Jefferson declined the appoint- 
ment, to labor in re-organizing Virginia. He therefore accepted a 
seat in the Legislature, where he zealously applied himself to revising 
the fundamental laws of the State. The abolition of primogenture 
and the church establishment was the result of his labors, and he 
was justly proud of it. No more important advance could have 
been made. It was a step from middle-age darkness into the broad 
light of modern civilization. 

In 1778, Jefferson procured the passage of a law prohibiting the 
further importation of slaves. The following year he was elected 
Governor, at the close of his official term seeking the retirement of 
Monticello. Hence, in 1782, shortly after the death of his beloved 
wife, he was summoned to act as one of the Commissioners to nego- 
tiate peace with England. He was not required to sail, however ; 
but, taking a seat in Congress, during the winter of 1783, he, who 
had drawn up the Declaration of Independence, was the first to 
ofiicially announce its final triumph. At the next session of Con- 
gress, he secured the adoption of our present admirable system of 
coinage. As chairman of a committee to draft rules for the govern- 
ment of our North-west Territory, he endeavored, but without 
success, to secure the prohibition of slavery therefrom forever. In 
May, 1784, he was sent to Europe, to assist Adams and Franklin 
in negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations. Eeturning 
home in 1789. he received from TTashington the appointment of 
Secretary of the United States, which office he resigned in 1793. 
He withdrew, says Marshall, '' at a time when he stood particularly 
high in the esteem of his countrymen." His friendship for France, 
and his dislike of England : his warm opposition to the aggrandize- 
ment of the central j)ower of the Government, and his earnest advo- 
cacy of every measure tending to enlarge popular freedom, had won 
for him a large following, and he now stood the acknowledged leader 
of the great and growing Anti-federal party. 

Washington declining a third term, Adams, as we have already 
seen, succeeded him. At the next election, Jefferson and Burr, the 
Republican candidates, stood highest on the list. By the election 
law of that period, he who had the greatest number of votes was to 
be President, while the Yice-Presidency fell to the next highest 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 21 

candidate. Jefferson and Burr having an equal number of votes, it 
remained foy tlie House of Representatives to decide which should 
be President. After a long and heated canvass, Jefferson was 
chosen. He was inaugurated, on the 4th of March, 1801, at Wash- 
ington, whither the Capitol had been removed a few months pre- 
viously. In 1804, he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. 
At the close of his second term, he retired once more to the quiet of 
Monticello. 

The most important public measure of Jefferson's administration, 
to the success of which he directed his strongest endeavors, was the 
purchase from France, for the insignificant sum of §15,000,000, of 
the immense Territory of Louisiana. It was during his administra- 
tion, too, that the conspiracy of Burr was discovered, and thwarted 
by the prompt and decisive action of the President. Burr's scheme 
was a mad one — to break up the union, and erect a new empire, 
with Mexico as its seat. 

From the retirement into which he had now withdrawn, Jefferson 
never afterwards emerged. His time was actively employed in the 
management of his property, and in his extensive correspondence. 
In establishing a University at Charlottesville, Jefferson took a deep 
interest, devoting to it much of his time and means. He was proud 
of his work, and directed that the words ''Father of the University 
of Yirginia" should be inscribed upon his tomb. He died, shortly 
after mid-day, on the Fourth of July, 1826, a few hours before his 
venerable friend and compatriot. Adams. 

Making no professions of Christianity, Jefferson, in all that con- 
stitutes true religion, was a thorough, practical Christian. His 
moral character was of the highest order. Profanity he could not 
endure, either in himself or others. He never touched cards, or 
strong drink in any form. He was one of the most generous of men, 
lavishly hospitable, and in everything a thorough gentleman. Gifted 
with an intellect far above the average, he had added to it a surpris- 
ing culture, which ranked him among our most accomplished schol- 
ars. To his extended learning, to his ardent love of liberty, and to 
his broad and tolerant views, is due much, very much, of whatever 
is admirable in our institutions. In them we discern everywhere 
traces of his master spirit. 



JAMES MADISON. 



^f^^ HEN" Mr. Jefferson retired from the Presidency, the country 
i^Mr^ ^^^ almost on the verge of war with Great Britain. Dis- 
putes had arisen in regard to certain restrictions laid by 
England upon our commerce. A hot discussion also came up 
about the right claimed and exercised by the commanders of Eng- 
lish war-vessels, of searching American ships and of taking from 
them such seamen as they might choose to consider natives of Great 
Britain. Many and terrible wrongs had been perpetrated in the 
exercise of this alleged right. Hundreds of American citizens had 
been ruthlessly forced into the British service. 

It was when the public mind was agitated by such outrages, that 
James Madison the fourth President of the United States, was in- 
augurated. Yv'hen he took his seat, on the Fourth of March, 1809, 
he lacked just one day of being fifty-eight years of age, having 
been born on the 5th of March, 1751. In his twenty-sixth year 
he had been a member of the Convention which framed the Consti- 
tution of Virginia; in 1780, had been elected to the Continental 
Congress, in which he at once took a commanding position; had 
subsequently entered the Virginia Legislature, where he co-operated 
with his friend and neighbor, Jefferson, in the abrogation of entail 
and primogeniture, and in the establishment of religious freedom ; 
had drawn up the call in answer to which the Convention to Draught 
a Constitution for the United States met at Philadelphia, in 1787; 
and had been one of the most active members of that memorable 
assemblage, in reconciling the discordant elements of which it was 
composed. He had also labored earnestly to secure the adoption of 
the new Constitution by his native State; had afterwards entered 
22 



JAMES JIADISOy. 23 

Congress; and, vrhen Jefferson was elected President, had been by 
him appointed Secretary of State. Some few years previously, he 
had married Mrs. Todd, a young widow lady, whose bright intelli- 
gence and fascinating manners were to gain her celebrity, as one of 
the most remarkable women who ever presided over the domestic 
arrangements of the Presidential mansion. 

Of a weak and delicate constitution, and with the habits of a 
student, Mr. Madison would have preferred peace to war. But even 
he lost patience at the insults heaped upon the young Eepublic by 
its ancient mother ; and when, at length, on the 18th of June, 1812, 
Congress declared war against G-reat Britain, he gave the declar- 
ation his official sanction, and took active steps to enforce it. 
Though disasters in the early part of the war greatly strengthened 
the Federal party, who were bitterly opposed to hostilities, the en- 
suing Presidential canvass resulted in the re-election of Mr. Madison 
by a large majority. On the 12th of August, 1814, a British army 
took Washington, the President himself narrowly escaping capture. 
The presidential mansion, the capitol, and all the public buildings 
were wantonly burned. The 14th of December following, a treaty 
of peace was signed at Ghent, in which, however. England did not 
relinquish her claim to the right of search. But as she has not since 
attempted to exercise it, the question may be regarded as having 
been finally settled by the contest. 

On the 4th of March, 1817, Madison's second term having expired, 
he withdrew to private life at his paternal home of Montpelier. 
During his administration, two new States had been added to the 
Union, making the total number at this period nineteen. The first 
to claim admittance was Louisiana, in 1812. It was formed out of 
the Southern portion of the vast Territory, purchased, during the 
Presidency of Jefierson, from France. Indiana — the second State — 
was admitted in 1816. 

After his retirement from oSce, Mr. Madison passed nearly a 
score of quiet years at Montpelier. With Jefierson, who was a not 
very distant neighbor, he co-operated in placing the Charlottesville 
University upon a substantial foundation. In 1829, he left his 
privacy to take part in the Convention which met at Eichmond to 
revise the Constitution of the State. His death took place on the 
28th of June, 1836 in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 



JAMES MONROE. 



5|\f^ successor in the presidential chair was James 

_^!i^JL Monroe, whose administration has been called ''the Era of 
Good Feeling," from the temporary subsidence at that time 
of party strife. He was born on his father's plantation in West- 
moreland County, Va., on the 28th of April, 1758. At the age of 
sixteen he entered William and Mary College ; but when, two years 
later, the Declaration of Independence called the colonies to arms, 
the young collegian, dropping his books, girded on his sword, and 
entered the service of his country. Commissioned a lieutenant, 
he took part in the battles of Harlem Heights and White Plains. 
In the attack on Trenton, he was wounded in the shoulder, and, for 
his bravery promoted to a captaincy. Subsequently he was attached 
to the staff of Lord Sterling with the rank of major; and fought 
by the side of Lafayette, when that ofi&cer was wounded at the battle 
of Brandywine ; and also participated in the battles of G-ermantown 
and Monmouth, He was afterwards given a colonel's commission ; 
but, being unable to recruit a regiment, began the study of law in 
the ofi&ce of Jefferson, then governor of "Virginia. In 1782. when 
only twenty-three years old, he was elected to the Yirginia legis- 
lature. The next year, he was sent to congress. On the expiration 
of his term, having meanwhile married, in New York, Miss Kort- 
right, a young lady of great intelligence and rare personal attractions, 
he returned to Fredericksburg, and commenced practice as a lawyer. 
In 1789, he was elected to the United States Senate. In 1794, he 
was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to France, but recalled from 
his mission two years later. 

Shortly after his return, Monroe was elected governor of Yirginia. 
24 



JAMES 210XR0E. 25 

On the expiration of Ms official term, he was sent to co-operate with 
Livingston in negotiating the treaty by which the territory of 
Louisiana was secured to the United States. In 1809, he was again 
elected governor of Yirginia ; but presently resigned to become 
Madison's Secretary of State. 

When Madison's second term expired, Monroe was chosen to 
succeed him. He was re-elected in 1821, with but one dissenting 
vote out of the 232 cast by the electoral college. On the 4th of 
March, 1825, he retired to the quiet and seclusion of his estate at Oak 
Hill, in London County, Yirginia. 

During Monroe's administration, the boundaries of the United 
States were considerably enlarged by the purchase of Florida from 
Spain. Five new States were also admitted into the Union : Missis- 
sippi, in 1817 ; Illinois, in 1818 ; Alabama, in 1819 ; Maine, in 1820 ; 
and Missouri, in 1821. 

The discussion in Congress over the admission of Missouri showed 
the existence of a new disturbing element in our national politics. 
It was the question of the further extension of slavery ; not so much 
in regard to its moral aspects, as to its bearing on the question 
of the balance of political power. For a brief period, two parties, 
one in favor of and the other against admitting any more slave states, 
filled Congress and the country with angry discussion. This was 
quieted for the time by what is known as ''the Missouri Compro- 
mise," which restricted slavery to the territory lying south of the 
southern boundary of Missouri. 

The somewhat celebrated '' Monroe Doctrine" is regarded as one 
of the most important results of Monroe's administration. It was 
enunciated in his message to Congress on the 2d of December, 1823, 
and arose out of his sympathy for the new Republics then recently 
set up in South America. In substance it was, that the United 
States would never entangle themselves with the quarrels of Europe, 
nor allow Europe to interfere with the affairs of this Continent. 

In 1830, the venerable ex-president went to reside with his son- 
in-law in New York, where he died, in the seventy-fourth year of his 
age, on the 4th of July, 1831, being the third of our five revolu- 
tionary presidents to pass from earth on the anniversary of that 
memorable day, which had contributed so largely to the shaping of 
their destinies. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 

■>;rT?HE son of John Adams, our second president, and himself 
(^Xg the sixth chief executive of the Union, was bom at Quincv, 
Mass.. on the 11th of July, 17G7. T\'hile ret a mere bov. he 
twice accompanied his father to Europe. Graduating from Harvard, 
in ITST, he studied law. and commenced practice in Boston, in 1790. 
In 1794, he was appointed by Washington minister to Holland, and 
in 1797, his father, who was then president, gave him the mission 
to Berlin. On the accession of Jefferson to the presidency, Mr. 
Adams was recalled from Berlin. Soon after his return, however, 
he was elected to the United States Senate, where he speedily won 
a commanding position, ardently supporting Jefferson's measures 
of resistance against the arrogance and insolence of England, 
in her encroachments upon our commerce, and in her impressment 
of our seamen. The legislature of Massachusetts having censured 
him for his course. Adams resigned his seat: but, in 1809, 
was selected by Madison to represent the United States at St. 
Petersburg. On the 24ih of December. ISll. he. in conjunction 
with Clay and Gallatin, concluded the Treaty of Ghent, which closed 
''the second War of Independence.'' In 1817. he was recalled to 
act as Secretary of State for President Monroe. At the election 
for Monroe's successor, party spirit ran high. The contest was an 
exciting one. Of the two htindred and sixty electoral votes, Andrew 
Jackson received 99, John Quincy Adams 84, TTm. H. Crawford 41, 
and Henry Clay 37. As there was no choice by the people, the 
election devolved upon the House of Eepresentatives. Here. Mr. 
Clay gave the vote of Kentucky to Adams, and he was elected. 
The Administration of the younger Adams has been characterized 
26 



LIVES OF THE FRESIDEXTS. 27 

as the purest and most economical on record. Yet, during Ms entire 
term, he was the object of the most rancorous partisan assaults. In 
his official intercourse, it was said, he often displayed '• a formal 
coldness, that froze like an iceberg." This coldness of manner, 
along with his adrocacT of a high protective tariff and the policy of 
internal improvements, and his known hostility to slavery, made him 
many bitter enemies, especially in the South, and. at the close of his 
first term, he was probably the most unpopular man who could have 
aspired to the Presidency. 

.On the 4th of March. 1829. General Jackson having been elected 
President, Mr. Adams retired to private life ; but, in 1831, was 
elected to the House of Eepresentatives of the United States, where 
he took his seat, pledged, as he said, to no party. He at once 
became the leader of that little band, so insignificant numbers, in 
but powerful in determination and courage, who. regarding slavery 
as both a moral and a political evil, began, in Congress, to advocate 
its abolition. By his continual presentation of petitions against 
slavery, he gradually, yet irresistibly, led the public mind to famili- 
arize itself with the idea of its final extinction. To the fiery on- 
slaughts of the Southern members, he opposed a cold and unimpas- 
sioned front. In 1842, to show his consistency in upholding the 
right of petition, he presented to Congress the petition of some 
thirty or forty over-zealous anti-slavery persons, for the dissolution 
of the Union. This brought upon the venerable ex-President a 
perfect tempest of indignation. Eesolutions to expel him were in- 
troduced; but, after eleven days of stormy discussion, they were 
laid on the table. The intrepidity displayed by *' the old man elo- 
quent," was beginning to teU. Even those who most bitterly opposed 
his doctrines, were learning to respect him. "When, after a season 
of illness, he re-appeared in Congress, in February, 1847, every mem- 
ber instinctively rose in his seat, to do the old man honor. On the 
12 st of February, 1848, Mr. Adams was struck down by paralysis on 
the floor of the House of Eepresentatives. He was taken, senseless, 
into an ante-room. Eecovering his consciousness, he looked cahnly 
around, and said: "This is the last of earth: I am content." These 
were his last words. In an apartment beneath the dome of the 
capitol, he soon after expired, in the eighty-first year of his age. 



ANDREW JACKSON, 



?z 



EYENTH President of the United States, was born in Meck- 
lenburg County, North Carolina, on the 15th of March, 1767. 
His father dying a few days before his birth, he, with two 
older brothers, was left to the care of his mother. The boys had 
little schooling. Andrew was a rude, turbulent lad, at once vindictive 
and generous, full of mischief, but resolute, ot indomitable courage, 
and wonderfully self-reliant. When but thirteen, fired by the death 
ol nis oldest brother, who had perished from heat and exhaustion, at 
the Battle of Stono, he shouldered a musket and took part in the 
War of Independence. He and his remaining brother were made 
prisoners by the British, but presently released through the exertions 
of their mother. Both were brought home with the small-pox, of 
which the elder died. Andrew himself barely escaped. The mother 
went next, dying of ship fever, contracted w^hile attending upon 
the patriot prisoners at Charleston. Thus left an orphan, Andrew 
worked a short time in a saddler's shop. He then tried school- 
teaching, and finally studied law, being admitted to practice when 
but twenty years old. 

In 1791, Jackson married, at Nashville, where he had built up a 
lucrative practice, Mrs. Eachel Eobards, the divorced wife, as both 
he and the lady herself supposed, of Mr. Lewis Eobards. They had 
lived together two years, when it was discovered that Mrs. Eobards 
was not fully divorced at the time of her second marriage. As, 
however, the divorce had subsequently been perfected, the marriage 
ceremony was performed anew, in 1794. In after years, this unfor- 
28 



ANDRE W J A CKSON. 29 

tunate mistake was made the basis of calumnious charges against 
Jackson by his partisan enemies. 

Tennessee having been made a state in 1796, Jackson was succes- 
sively its representative and senator in congress, and a judge of 
its Supreme Court. Eesigning his judgeship in 1804, he entered 
into and carried on for a number of years an extensive trading busi- 
ness. He was also elected at this period major-general in the militia. 
In 1806, he was severely wounded in a duel with Charles Dickenson, 
who had been making disparaging remarks against his wife, some- 
thing which Jackson could neither forget nor forgive. Dickenson 
fell mortally wounded, and, after suffering intense agony for a short 
time, died. This sad affair, in which Jackson displayed much vin- 
dictiveness, made him for awhile very unpopular. 

When, in 1812, war was declared against England, Jackson 
promptly offered his services to the general government. During 
the summer of 1813, he had another of those personal rencontres 
into which his fiery temper was continually leading him. In an affray 
with Thos. H. Benton, he received a pistol-shot in the shoulder, at 
the hands of Benton's brother, from the effects of which he never 
fully recovered. He was still suffering from the immediate conse- 
quences of this wound, when tidings were received at Nashville of 
the massacre of Fort Mimms, by Creek Indians. Jackson, regardless 
of his hurts, at once took the field. An energetic campaign, in 
which, winning victory after victory, he established his reputation 
as one of our best military chieftains, ended the Creek war, and 
broke forever the power of the Indian races in North America. 

In May, 1814, Jackson was made a major-general in the regular 
army, and became the acknowledged military leader in the South- 
west. New Orleans being threatened by the British, he hastened to 
defend it. There, on the 8th of January, 1815, vdth less than five 
thousand men, mostly untrained militia, he repulsed the attack of a 
well-appointed army, of nearly 14,000 veteran troops^ under some of 
the most distinguished officers in the English service. Ten days 
later, the enemy withdrew, leaving many of their guns behind them. 
The full glory of Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, partisan rancor 
subsequently sought to dim. But high military authorities, even in 
England, have sustained the popular judgment, that it was a brilHant 
victory, achieved by rare foresight, wise conduct, and undoubted 
warlike genius. 



30 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

Jackson's success at New Orleans gave him immense popularity. 
He received a vote of thanks from Congress, was made commander- 
in-chief of the southern division of the army, and even began to be 
talked of as a candidate for the presidency. President ]\tonroe 
offered him the post of secretary of war. In the Seminole war, 
which commenced about the close of 1817, he took the field in per- 
son. He was successful, with but little fighting. His execution of 
Arbuthnot and Armbrister, two British subjects, found guilty by a 
military court, of inciting the Indians to hostilities, caused an angry 
discussion between England and the United States, which at one 
time threatened to end in open rupture. In congress, also, it excited 
a warm debate ; but resolutions censuring the general were rejected 
by the house, and came to no conclusion in the senate. 

When Spain ceded Florida to the union, Jackson was appointed 
governor of the territory. In 1823, he was elected to the United 
States Senate by the legislature of Tennessee, which, at the same 
time, nominated him for the presidency. This nomination, though 
ridiculed, on account of Jackson's alleged unfitness for the office, 
nevertheless resulted, at the ensuing election, in his receiving more 
votes than any other single candidate ; but the choice devolving on 
the house of representatives, Adams, as we have seen, was elected. 
In the next campaign, however, Jackson achieved a decided triumph, 
having a majority of 95 out of 261 electoral votes. 

In retaliation for the bitter personal attacks he had received during 
the campaign, Jackson commenced a wholesale political proscription 
of his partisan opponents. Adopting the war-cry of his secretary 
of state, Marcy, of New York, that ''to the victors belong the 
spoils," he initiated that system, ever since pursued, of turning out 
of ofiQce every man not on the side of the winning party. His veto 
of the bill re-chartering the United States bank, which for a time 
caused quite a panic in commercial circles, and his determined stand 
against the ''nullifiers," under the lead of Calhoun, who, with threats 
of armed resistance, demanded a reduction of the tariff, excited a 
warm opposition to the President. But, in spite of every effort, the 
election of 1828 brought him again into the Presidential chair, with 
an overwhelming majority. On the 10th of December, 1832, Jackson 
was compelled by the conduct of South Carolina, to issue a procla- 
mation, threatening to use the army in case of resistance to the 
execution of the tariff laws ; but, fortunately, Mr. Clay succeeded in 



ANDRE W J A CRSON, 31 

bringing about a compromise, by which the tariff being modified, the 
South Carolinians were enabled to recede from their position with 
becoming dignity. 

Jackson's removal of the deposites, in 1833, caused an intense 
excitement throughout the country. In congress, his course was 
censured by the senate, but approved by the house/ A panic 
existed for some time in business circles ; but, before the close of his 
second term, the great mass of the people were content with the 
president's course. 

Jackson's foreign diplomacy had been very successful. Useful 
commercial treaties were made with several countries, and renewed 
with others. Indemnities for spoliations on American commerce 
were obtained from various foreign countries. The national debt 
was extinguished, the Cherokees were removed from Georgia, and 
the Creeks from Florida, while the original number of the states 
was doubled by the admission in+o the union of Arkansas, in 1836, 
and of Michigan, in 1837. On the other hand, the slavery dispute was 
renei^ed with much bitterness, and the Seminole war recommenced. 

On the 4th of March, 1837, Jackson retired from public life forever. 
He returned to '' the Hermitage," his country seat, where he re- 
mained until his death, on the 8th of June, 1845. The immediate 
cause of his death was dropsy ; but, through the greater part of his 
life he had been a sufferer from disease in one form or another. 

General Jackson has been described as a man of unbounded hos- 
pitality. He loved fine horses, and had a passion for racing them. 
''His temper," writes Col. Benton, ''was placable as well as irascible, 
and his reconciliations were cordial and sincere." He abhorred debt, 
public as well as private. His love of country was a master passion. 
'' He was a thoroughly honest man, as straightforward in action as 
his thoughts were unsophisticated." Of book-knowledge he pos- 
sessed little, — scarcely anything ; but his vigorous native intelligence 
and intuitive judgment carried him safely through, where the most 
profound learning, without them, would have failed. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN, 

'^rV^ HE eiglitli chief executive of the union, was the son of a thrifty 
§Ml ^^^'^*^^* ^^ ^^^ ^^^ town of Kinderhook, in Columbia county, 
New York, where he was born on the 5th of December, 1782. 
Early evidencing unusual mental vigor, a good academic education 
was given to him. Finishing this at the age of fourteen, he then 
began the study of the law. After seven years of study, he was 
admitted to the bar, and commenced to practice in his native village. 
His growing reputation and practice warranting him in seeking a 
wider field, in 1809 he removed to Hudson. In 1812, he was elected 
to the senate of New York ; and, in 1815, appointed attorney-general 
of the state, he removed to Albany. In 1821, he was elected to the 
United States Senate, and was also a member of the convention to 
revise the constitution of New York. He speedily rose to distinc- 
tion in the national senate, and, in 1827, was re-elected to that body; 
but, the year following, resigned his seat to take the position of 
governor of New York. In 1829, General Jackson, whose election 
to the presidency was no doubt due in a great measure to the shrewd 
political management of Tan Buren, offered him the post of secretary 
of state. In 1831, circumstances making it necessary for Jackson to 
re-organize his cabinet, Yan Buren resigned his secretaryship ; but 
was immediately named minister to England. The senate, however, 
greatly to the president's dissatisfaction, refused to confirm the nomi- 
nation, though Yan Buren had already reached London. This rejec- 
tion of his friend aroused all of Jackson's determined spirit, and he 
at once began to work zealously to obtain Yan Buren's nomination as 
his successor in the presidency. He triumphed • his friend received 
32 



MARTIN VAN BVREN 33 

the Democratic nomination, and was elected by a handsome majority, 
taking his seat in the presidential chair on the 4th of March, 1837. 

Shortly after Yan Buren's inauguration, a financial panic, ascribed 
to General Jackson's desire to make specie the currency of the 
country, and his consequent war upon the banks, brought the country 
to the very verge of ruin. Failures came fast and frequent, and all 
the great industries of the nation were paralyzed. At the same 
time, the war in Florida against the Seminoles lingered along, with- 
out the slightest apparent prospect of coming to an end, entailing 
enormous expenses on the government ; while the anti-slavery agita- 
tion, growing steadily stronger, excited mobs and violence, and 
threatened to shake the Eepublic from its foundations. Eightly or 
wrongly, these troubles were attributed to President Yan Buren and 
his party, as resulting from the policy they had pursued. His 
popularity waned rapidly, and, at the presidential election in 1840, 
in which he was a candidate for re-election, he was overwhelmingly 
defeated. 

Eetiring to Lindenwald, his fine estate near Kinderhook, Yan 
Buren, in 1844, endeavored to procure a re-nomination for the presi- 
dency, but was unsuccessful. In 1848, however, he was brought 
forward for that ofiice by the Free-soil Democrats. Though not 
elected, the party which had nominated him showed unexpected 
strength, three hundred thousand votes having been cast in his 
favor. 

Mr. Yan Buren now retired from public life forever. Four years 
later, at the age of eighty, on the 24th of July, 1862, he died at 
Lindenwald. He was a man of more than ordinary ability, of culti- 
vated manners, and genial disposition. Though a shrewd, he was 
not a dishonest politician. His private character was beyond re- 
proach. He deserves a conspicuous position among those who have 
been worthy successors of our immortal first president. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 



(^^TILLIAM HENEY HAEEISON, ninth President of the 
iAi\L United States, was born at Berkeley, on the banks of the 
James Eiver, in Virginia, on the 9th of February, 1773. 
His father, Benjamin Harrison, was one of the signers of the Declar- 
ation of Independence, and for several years governor of Virginia. 
Having received a good education at Hampden Sidney College, 
young Harrison began the study of medicine ; but the barbarities of 
the savages on our north-western frontier having excited his sympa- 
thies in behalf of the suffering settlers, he determined to enter the 
army, as being a place where he could do good service. Accordingly, 
in 1791, shortly after St. Clair's defeat, he obtained from President 
Washington a commission as ensign in the artillery. Though winter 
was coming on, he at once set out on foot across the wilderness to 
Pittsburg, whence he descended the Ohio to Fort Washington, now 
Cincinnati. He soon became a favorite with his superiors, and by 
his bravery in battle speedily attained the rank of captain. In 1797, 
when but twenty-four years old, having recently married, he resigned 
his commission, to accept the secretaryship of the north-west terri- 
tory. In 1800, he was appointed governor of ''the Indiana territory," 
comprising the present states of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 
This office he filled satisfactorily to both whites and Indians, for 
twelve years. 

During the summer of 1811, the Indians of the north-west, under 
the lead of the celebr.ated Tecumseh, and instigated, it is thought, 
by the emissaries of England, with whom we were upon the point of 
going to war, broke out into open hostility. Collecting a considerable 
force of militia and volunteers, Harrison took the field. On the 7th 
34 



WILLIAM HEXE Y HAEBISOX. 35 

of November, he encountered and defeated Tecumseh. on the banks 
of the Tippecanoe Eiver. This was one of the most hotly contested 
battles ever fought between the Indians and the whites. Its victor- 
ious result added greatly to Harrison's already high reputation; 
and. in 1812, after Hull's ignominous surrender of Detroit, he was 
appointed commander-in-chief of the army of the north-west. In- 
vested with almost absolute power, he displayed an energy, sagacity, 
and courage, which justified the confidence reposed in him. By 
almost superhuman exertions, he managed to collect an army. 
Perry, on the 10th of September, 1813, having defeated the British 
fleet on Lake Erie, Harrison, who had been waiting the course of 
events, now hastened to take the field. Crossing into Canada, he 
repossessed Detroit, and, pushing on in pursuit of the flying enemy, 
finally brought them to a stand on the banks of the Thames, Here, 
after a brief but sanguinary contest, the British and their savage 
alhes were defeated with heavy loss. Tecumseh. the leading spirit 
of the Indians, was left dead on the field. Harrison's triumph was 
complete and- decisive. 

Shortly after this victory, which gave peace to the north-west, 
Harrison, having had some difficulty wiih the secretary of war, threw 
up his commission; but was appointed by the president to negotiate 
a treaty with the Indians. In 1816. he was elected to the lower 
house of congress, where he gained considerable reputation, both as 
an active working member and as an eloquent and effective speaker. 
In 1824, he was sent from Ohio to the United States senate. In 1828, 
he was appointed by John Quincy Adams minister to Colombia; 
but President Jackson, who bore him no good-will, the following 
year recalled him. On his return home, he retired to his farm at 
North Bend, on the Ohio Eiver, and was presently elected clerk of 
the Hamilton county court. In 1836, he was one of the four candi- 
dates who ran against Yan Buren for the presidency, Jackson's 
favorite, as we have seen, came out ahead in this race. But, though 
Harrison was not elected, there was such evidence of his popularity 
as to warrant the "Whigs in uniting upon him as their candidate in 
the campaign of 18-10. 

That campaign was a memorable one. It was. perhaps, the most 
exciting, yet, at the same time, one of the freest from extreme partisan 
bitterness, of any presidential canvass ever known. As '-the hero of 
Tippecanoe.'* and ••the log-cabin candidate." which latter phrase was 



36 LIVE< OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

first used in contempt, Harrison swept everything before him. secur- 
ing 234 out of the 294 electoral votes cast, and this, too, in spite of 
all the efforts of Jackson to prevent his success. His journey to be 
inaugurated was one continued ovation. His inauguration, which 
took place on the 4th of March. 1841, was witnessed by a vast 
concourse of people from all parts of the union. His address, by 
the moderation of its tone, and by its plain, practical, common-sense 
views, confirmed his immense popularity. Selecting for his cabinet 
some of the most eminent public men of the country, he began his 
administration with the brightest prospects. Btit, in the midst of 
these pleasing anticipations, he was suddenly attacked by a fit of 
sickness, which, in a few days terminated in his death, on the 4th 
of April, just one month after his inauguration. His last words, 
spoken in the delirium of fever, were characteristic of the conscien- 
tiousness with which he had accepted the responsibilities of the 
presidential office. '-Sir,'' he said, as if, conscious of his approaching 
end, he were addressing his successor, "I wish you to understand 
the principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask 
nothing more."' 

The sudden and unexpected death of President Harrison threw 
the whole country into mourning. Much had been hoped from him, 
as one who had the best interests of every portion of the union at 
heart. His death, therefore, was regarded as a national calamity, 
and. never since the death of "Washington, had there been witnessed 
such tokens of profound and sincere grief as were called forth on this 
occasion. There was a noble simplicity in his character whicb had 
won all hearts. Without being brilliant, his was an intellect of solid, 
substantial worth. He was a frank, guileless-hearted man, of incor- 
ruptible integrity, and stands forth among our presidents, brief as 
was his ofBcial term, as a noble representative of the plain, practical, 
honest yeomanry of the land. ''Not one single spot," says Abbott, 
''can be found to sully the brightness of his fame ; and. through all 
the ages, Americans will pronounce with love and reverence the 
name of William Henry Harrison."' 



W^^^^si'^ 




^^ 


^^^fM^^^//M 




@^£ 




^^^m^ 


^^^^s 





JOHN TYLER. 



^N tlie death of General Harrison, April 4, 1841, for the first 
time in our history the administration of the government 
devolved on the vice-president. The gentleman thus elevated 
to the presidency was John Tyler, the son of a wealthy landholder 
of Virginia, at one time governor of that state. Born in Charles 
City County, IMarch 29, 1790, young Tyler, at the age of seventeen, 
graduated from WiUiam and }>Iary CoUege with the reputation of 
having delivered the best commencement oration ever heard by the 
faculty. TThen only nineteen, he began to practice law, rising to 
eminence in his profession with surprising rapidity. Two years later, 
he was elected to the legislature. After serving five successive 
terms in the legislature, he was, in 1816, in 1817, and again in 1819, 
elected to congress. Compelled by ill-health to resign his seat in 
congress, he was, in 1825, chosen governor of the state. In 1S27 
he was elected to the United States Senate over the celebrated John 
Randolph. 

During the whole of his congressional career, Mr. Tyler was an 
earnest advocate of the strict construction doctrines of the then 
Democratic party, opposing the United States bank, a protective 
tariff, internal improvements by the general government, and. in 
short, all measures tending to the centralization of power. He was 
also an ardent opponent of any restrictions upon slavery, and avowed 
Ms sympathies with the nullification theories of Calhoun. On this 
last subject he finally came into the opposition against Jackson. In 
the session of 1833-34, he voted for Clay's resolutions censuring 
Jackson for his removal of the deposites. In 1836, when the Virginia 
legislature instructed its representatives in congress to vote for the 
rescinding of these resolutions, Mr. Tyler, who had early committed 

37 



38 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS, 

himself to the right of instruction, could not conscientiously comply 
with the request of the legislature, nor hold his seat in disregard of 
its mandate, and accordingly resigned. In 1838 he was again sent 
to the legislature, and, in 1839, we find him a delegate to the Whig 
national convention, which, at Harrisburg, nominated Harrison and 
himself as candidates for president and Tice-^^resid^nt. Of the cam- 
paign which followed, and of the subsequent death of Harrison, we 
have already given an account in our sketch of the life of the latter. 

On receiving tidings of the president's death, Mr. Tyler hastened 
to Washington, and, on the 6th of April was inaugurated. Three 
days later, he issued an inaugural address, which was well received, 
both by the public and by his partisan friends, who, knowing his ante- 
cedents, had been somewhat dubious as to what ^^olicy he would 
pursue. But this was only the calm before the storm. Tyler's veto 
of the bill for a ''fiscal bank of the United States " led to a complete 
rupture with the party by which he had been elected, who charged 
him with treachery to his principles. Attempting conciliation, he 
only displeased the Democrats, who had at first shown a disposition 
to stand by him, without regaining the favor of the Whigs. During 
his administration, however, several very important measures were 
adopted. Among them, the act establishing a uniform system of 
bankruptcy, passed in 1841 ; the tariff law of 1842 ; and the scheme 
for the annexation of Texas, which, by the vigorous efforts of the 
president, was brought to a successful issue by the passage of joint 
resolutions in congress, on the 1st of March, 1845, just three days 
before the close of his term. The formal act of annexation, however, 
was not passed until a later period. One new state — Florida — was 
also admitted into the union, in 1845. 

After his retirement from the presidency, on the 4th of March, 
1845, Mr. Tyler remained in private life at his beautiful home of 
Shervv'ood Forest, in Charles City County, till in 1861 he appeared 
as a member of the peace convention, composed of delegates from 
the "border states," which met at Washington to endeavor to ar- 
range terms of compromise between the seceded states and the general 
government. Of this convention, which accomplished nothing, he 
was president. Subsequently he renounced his allegiance to the 
United States, and was chosen a member of the Confederate congress. 
While acting in this capacity, he was taken sick at Eichmond, where 
he died after a brief illness, on the 17th of January, 1862. 



JAMES KNOX POLK. 



"n|^yf ECKLENBUEG- County, North Carolina, has the distinction 
•oM^ of being the birth-place of two Presidents of the United 
States — Andrew Jackson, and James Knox Polk, the latter 
of whom was bom there on the 2d of November, 1795. Like his 
friend and neighbor, General Jackson, Mr. Polk was of Scotch-Irish 
descent. It was his great-imcle. Col. Thomas Polk, who, on the 
19th of May, 1TT5, read from tbe steps of the court-house at Char- 
lotte, that famous '^ Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence," to 
which reference has been made in our sketch of Jefferson. James 
at a yery early age manifested decided literary tastes. After a vain 
attempt to induce him to become a store-keeper, his father finally 
consented to his entering the University of Xorth Carolina, at Chapel 
Hill, from which, in his twenty-third year, he graduated with the 
highest honors. Studying law at Xashville, Tennessee, where he 
renewed a former acquaintance with General Jackson, he was ad- 
mitted to the bar, and commenced practice at Columbia. In 1823 
he was elected to the legislature of Tennessee, and. during the 
following year, was married to Miss Sarah Childress, a beautiful and 
accomplished young lady, of refined manners, and rare social gifts. 
In the fall of 1825 he was elected to congress, where he remained 
the next fourteen years, during five sessions occupying the responsible 
and honorable position of speaker of the house, the duties of which 
he performed with a dignity and dispassionateness which won for 
him the warmest encomiums from all parties. In 1839 he was 
chosen governor of Tennessee. Again a candidate in 1841, and also 
in 1843, he was both times defeated, — a result due to one of those 
periodical revolutions in politics, which seem inseparable from repub- 

39 



40 JAMES KNOX POLK. 

lican forms of government, rather than to Mr. Polk's lack of personal 
popularity. 

As the avowed friend of the annexation of Texas, Mr. Polk, in 

1844, was nominated by the Democrats for the presidency. Though 
he had for his opponent no less a person than the great and popular 
orator and statesman, Henry Clay, he received a majority of 65 votes 
in the electoral college. He was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 

1845. Three days previously, his predecessor, John Tyler, had signed 
the joint resolutions of congress favoring the annexation of Texas 
to the United States. Consequently, a,t the very beginning of his 
administration, Mr. Polk found the country involved in disputes with 
Mexico, which, on the formal annexation of Texas, in December, 
1845, threatened to result in hostilities between the two countries. 
General Taylor was sent with a small army to occupy the territory 
stretching from the Neuces to the Eio Grande, which latter stream 
Texas claimed as her western boundary. Mexico, on the other hand, 
declaring that Texas had never extended further west than the 
Neuces, despatched a force to watch Taylor. A slight collision, in 
April, 1846, was followed, a few days later, by the battles of Palo 
Alto and Resaca de la Palma, in which Gen. Taylor was victorious. 
When the tidings of these battles reached Washington, the presi- 
dent, on May 11, sent a special message to congress, declaring ''that 
war existed by the act of Mexico," and asking for men and money 
to carry it on. Congress promptly voted ten million dollars, and 
authorized the president to call out fifty thousand volunteers. Hos- 
tilities were prosecuted vigorously. An American army, under Gen. 
Scott finally fought its way to the capture of the city of Mexico. 
On the 2d of February, 1848, the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo v*^as 
signed, and ratified by the senate on the 10th of March following, by 
which New Mexico and upper California, comprising a territory of 
more than half a million square miles, were added to the United 
States. In return, the United States agreed to pay Mexico fifteen 
millions of dollars, and to assume the debts due by Mexico to citizens 
of the United States, amounting to three and a half millions more. 

Besides Texas, two other states were admitted into the union 
during Mr. Polk's administration. These were Iowa and Wisconsin; 
the former in 1846, and the latter in 1848. 

When the war with Mexico first broke out, negotiations were 
pending between England and the United States, in regard to 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. ^1 

Oregon, which we had long deemed a portion oi our own territory 
''Fifty-four forty [54° 40^] or fight ! " had been one of the Democratic 
battle-cries during the canvass which resulted in Mr. Polk's election, 
and he, in his inaugural, had maintained that our title to Oregon was 
unquestionable. England, however, still urged her claim to the 
whole country. After considerable negotiation, the president finally, 
as an amicable compromise, offered the boundary of the parallel of 
49^, givhig Vancouver's Island to Great Britain. His offer was 
accepted, and war, perhaps, avoided. Another important measure 
of Mr. Polk's administration, was a modification of the tariff, in 1846, 
by which its former protective features were much lessened. 

On his nomination, in 1844, Mr. Polk had pledged himself to the 
one term principle. Consequently he was not a candidate for re- 
election in 1848. Having witnessed the inauguration of his succes- 
sor, Gen. Taylor, he returned to his home near Nashville. ''He was 
then," says Abbott, "but fifty-four years of age. He had ever been 
strictly temperate in his habits, and his health was good. With an 
ample fortune, a choice library, a cultivated mind, and domestic ties 
of the dearest nature, it seemed as though long years of tranquillity 
and happiness were before him," But it was not so to be. On his 
way home he felt premonitory symptoms of cholera, and when he 
reached there his system was much weakened. Though at first able 
to work a little in superintending the fitting up of his grounds, he 
was soon compelled to take to his bed. He never rose from it again. 
Though finally the disease was checked in him, he had not strength 
left to bring on the necessary reaction, and commenced to sink away, 
slowly and insensibly. "He died without a struggle, simply ceasing 
to breathe, as when deep and quiet sleep falls upon a weary man," 
on the 15th of June, 1849, a little more than three months after his 
retirement from the presidency. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR, 

yr^ WELFTH President of the United States, was born in Orange 
6^ County, Yirginia, November 24, 1784. His father, Colonel 
Eichard Taylor, was a noted Eevolutionary officer. His 
mother, as is usually the case with the mothers of men who have 
risen to distinction, was a woman of great force of character. Whilst 
he was yet an infant, his parents removed to the then wilderness near 
the present city of Louisville. Here, in the depths of the forest, 
swarming v/ith hostile savages, young Taylor found few educational 
advantages, though the training he received was no doubt one to 
develop those military qualities he subsequently displayed. He grew 
up a rugged, brave, self-reliant youth, with more of a certain frank, 
almost blunt off-handedness, than exterior polish. 

In 1808, he received a lieutenant's commission in the army. His 
military career fairly opened in 1812, when he vvas sent to the defense 
of our western border. While in command of Fort Harrison, on the 
Wabash, with a garrison of but fifty-two men, he was suddenly at- 
tacked by a band of Indians, who succeeded in setting fire to the 
fort. But the young captain, with his handful of men, extinguished 
the flames, and forced the enemy to retreat. For this gallant exploit, 
he received a brevet major's commission. 

Nothing remarkable occurred in his life for many years subsequent, 
until, in 1837, we find him a colonel in Florida, operating against the 
Seminoles. On Christmas day of that year, he won the battle of 
Okechobee, one of the most fiercely contested actions in the annals 
of Indian warfare. The Seminoles never rallied again in formidable 
numbers. For his signal services in this affair, Taylor was made a 
brigadier, and appointed commander-in-chief. This post he retained 
42 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 43 

till 1840, when, having purchased an estate in Louisiana, he was, 
at his own request, placed in command of the department of the 
south-west. 

"While still holding this command, in the spring of 1845, congress 
having passed joint resolutions for the annexation of Texas, Gen. 
Taylor was sent with 4,000 troops to Corpus Christi, on the west 
bank of the Neuces, and in territory claimed by both Mexico and 
Texas. It has been said, that it was the secret object of our govern- 
ment to provoke a conflict with Mexico, yet so that the responsibility 
of it should appear to rest upon Glen. Taylor. If such was the object, 
the scheme signally failed. Taylor made no move without explicit 
orders. It was by the president's positive command, that, on the 
8th of March, 1846, the wary old general began his march into the 
disputed district lying between the Neuces and the Eio Grande. 
Reaching the latter stream on the 28th, he built Fort Brown, im- 
mediately opposite the Mexican town of Matamoras. On the 12th 
of April, the Mexican commander peremptorily ordered Taylor to 
retire beyond the Neuces. A refusal to do this, he said, would be 
regarded as a declaration of war. General Taylor replied that his 
instructions would not permit him to retire, and that if the Mexicans 
saw fit to commence hostilities he would not shrink from the conflict. 
Six thousand Mexicans at once crossed the Rio Grande. With less 
than 3000 troops, Taylor, on the 8th of April, attacked and defeated 
them at Palo Alto. Rallying in a strong position at Resaca de la 
Raima, the Mexicans were again attacked, and, after a stubborn 
fight, driven back across the river with great loss. These victories 
were hailed with the wildest enthusiasm throughout the country, and 
Taylor was promoted to a major-generalship. 

Moving rapidly forward to Monterey, he took that strongly fortified 
city, after a desperate fight of three days. Making it his head- 
quarters, the victor was preparing for an important move, when 
Gen. Scott, who was about to lead an expedition against Yera Cruz, 
took away the best part of his troops, leaving him with only 5,000 
men, mostly raw volunteers. Hearing of this, Santa Anna, undoubt- 
edly the ablest of the Mexican generals, with 20,000 picked men, 
pushed rapidly down the Rio, Grande, with the design of overpowering 
Taylor's little army. The latter, on the 21st of February, 1847, took 
position at Buena Yista, and awaited the approach of his antagonist, 
who made his appearance the following day, and at once began a 



44 LIVES OF TEE PRESIDENTS. 

fiery attack. Never was battle fouglit with more desperate courage 
or greater skill. Three times during the day, victory seemed with 
the Mexicans ; but finally, the stubborn valor of Taylor's little baud 
won the field. 

The tidings of this brilliant victory excited the greatest enthusiasm, 
and gained an imperishable renown for the triumphant general. On 
his return home, in November, **old rough and ready," as his soldiers 
familiarly called him, was greeted everywhere by the warmest de- 
monstrations of popular applause. Even before this he had been 
nominated at public meetings for the presidency; and now, the 
Whigs, casting about for a popular candidate, made him their party 
nominee. Notwithstanding the defection from their ranks of Henry 
Wilson and others, who were opposed to Taylor as being a slave- 
holder, he was elected by a respectable majority. His inauguration 
took place on Monday, March 5, 1849. 

Though he selected an excellent cabinet, the old soldier found 
himself in a trying position. A vehement struggle had commenced 
in congress about the organization of the new territories,, the admis- 
sion of California, and the settlement of the boundary between Texas 
and New Mexico, all these questions being connected with the great 
and absorbing one of the extension or non-extension of slavery. 
Taylor, in his message to congress, recommended the admission of 
California as a free state, and that the remaining territories should 
be allowed to form state constitutions to suit themselves. Nothing 
could have been more distasteful to the extremists of the south, 
many of whom made open threats of secession, in case of the adoption 
of the president's suggestions. To adjust the difficulty, Mr. Clay, in 
the senate, introduced his '' compromise measures," which were still 
under debate, when, on the 4th of July, 1850, Gen. Taylor was seized 
with bilious fever, of which he died on the 9th, at the presidential 
mansion. His last words were : '' I have tried to do my duty." 



MILLARD FILLMORE. 



vN the death of General Taylor, his successor, according to the 
Q^^ constitution, was the vice-president . The gentleman then 
filling that position was Millard Fillmore, an eminent lawyer 
of New York. He was comparatively a young man, having been 
born on the 17th of January, 1800, at Summer Hill, Cayuga County, 
New York. His father being poor, his means of education had been 
limited. Apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a clothier, he found 
time during his evenings to gratify an insatiable thirst for knowledge, 
by reading. His studious habits, fine personal appearance, and gen- 
tlemanly bearing, having attracted the attention of a lawyer in the 
neighborhood, that gentleman ofiered to receive him in his office, 
and besides assist him pecuniarily, until he should be admitted to 
the bar. This offer young Fillmore, then in his nineteenth year> 
thankfully accepted. TTith this help, and by teaching -during the 
winters, he was enabled to prosecute his studies to a successful issue, 
and, in 1823, was admitted to the bar, opening an office in the village 
of Aurora, in New York. 

Mr. Fillmore steadily rose in his profession. In 1829, he was 
elected to the state legislature, and soon afterwards removed to 
Bufi'alo. In 1832, he was chosen a member of congress ; and again, 
in 1837, but declined running a third time. He now had a wide 
reputation, and, in the year 1847, was elected state comptroller, and 
removed to Albany. The following year, he was placed in nomina- 
tion as vice-president, on the ticket with General Taylor. When, on 
the 5th of March, 1849, Taylor took the presidential chair, Mr. Fill- 
more, by virtue of his office, became speaker of the United States 
Senate. Here, the first presiding officer to take so firm a step, he 

45 



46 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

announced his determination, in spite of all precedents to the con- 
trary, to promptly call senators to order for any offensive words they 
might utter in debate. 

When, after the death of Gen. Taylor, the office of chief executive 
devolved upon Mr. Fillmore, he found his position no easy or pleasant 
one. The controversy on the slavery question had intensely em- 
bittered public feeling, and it required a skilful pilot to guide the 
ship of state safely through the perils by which she was environed. 
The compromise measures of Mr. Clay, to which we have already 
referred in our sketch of General Taylor, were finally passed, and 
received the approving signature of Mr. Fillmore. One of these 
measures was the admission of California as a free state ; another 
was the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. These 
were thought to be concessions to the cause of freedom ; while, on 
the other hand, to satisfy the pro-slavery agitators, a bill was passed 
to give the owners of slaves power to recapture fugitive slaves in 
any part of the free states, and carry them back without a jury trial. 
But, though enacted in the hope of allaying sectional animosity, 
these measures brought about only a temporary calm to the general 
agitation, while they aggravated the violence of extremists both 
north and south. 

The compromise measures, and the fitting out of the famous Japan 
expedition, were the principal features of Mr. Fillmore's otherwise 
uneventful administration. On the 4th of March, 1853, he retired 
from office, and immediately afterward took a long tour through the 
southern states, where he met with a cordial reception. 

In 1855, Mr. Fillmore visited Europe. He was everywhere re- 
ceived with those marks of attention which, according to European 
ideas, are due to those who have occupied the most distinguished 
positions. On his return home, in 1856, he was nominated for the 
presidency by the so-called "Know-nothing," or Native-American 
party ; but, being defeated, he retired to private life. He died at 
Buffalo, New York, on the 8th of March, 1874. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE, 

^^'OURTEEXTH President of the United States, was born at 
' ^ Hillsborough, N. H., November 23d, 1804. His father, a 
soldier of the Eevolution, was a man of considerable local 
repute. Graduating from Bowdoin College in 1824, Mr. Pierce 
studied law with the celebrated Levi Woodbury, and commenced 
practice in his native town. He early entered the political field, 
and, in 1833, after having previously served several terms in the 
state legislature, was elected to congress. Here he showed himself 
an earnest state-rights Democrat, and was regarded as a fair working 
member. In 1837, when but thirty-three years of age, he was elected 
to the national senate, and, during the following year, removed to 
Concord, where he at once took rank among the leading lawyers of 
the state. 

Though Mr. Pierce had declined the office of attorney-general 
of the United States, offered to him by President Polk, he never- 
theless, when hostilities were declared against Mexico, accepted a 
brigadier-generalship in the army, successfully marching, with twenty- 
four hundred men, from the sea-coast to Puebla, where he re-inforced 
General Scott. The latter, on the arrival of Pierce, immediately 
prepared to make his long-contemplated attack upon the city of 
Mexico. At the battle of Contreras, on the 19th of August, 1847, 
where he led an assaulting column four thousand strong, General 
Pierce showed himself to be a brave and energetic soldier. Early 
in the fight, his leg was broken by his horse falling upon him ; yet 
he kept his saddle during the entire conflict, which did not cease 
till eleven o'clock at night. The next day, also, he took part in the 
still more desperate fight at Churubusco, where, overcome by pain 

47 



48 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

and exhaiTstion, lie fainted on the field. At Molino Del Eey, where 
the hottest battle of the war was fought, he narrowly escaped death 
from a shell which bursted beneath his horse. 

The American army triumphantly entered the city of Mexico on 
the 13th of September, 1847. General Pierce remained there until 
the following December, when he returned home, and resumed the 
practice of his profession. Nominated for the presidency by the 
Democratic national convention, which met at Baltimore, on the 1st 
of June, 1852, he was elected by an overwhelming majority, and in- 
augurated chief magistrate, on the 4th of March, 1853. 

Though both the great parties of the country had adopted platforms 
favoring the recent compromise measures of Clay, an "^ deprecating 
any renewal of the agitation of the slavery question. General Pierce's 
administration, by reason of the bringing up of that very question, 
was one of the most stormy in our history. Douglas' bill for the 
organization of Kansas and Nebraska, by which the Missouri com- 
promise act of 1820 was repealed, allowing slavery to enter where it 
had been forever excluded, and which, having the support of the 
president, became a law on the last day of May, 1853, excited the 
most intense indignation in the free states, and greatly increased the 
strength of the anti- slavery power. In Kansas a bitter contest, 
almost attaining the proportions of civil war, began between the 
partisans of the south and the north. This contest was still raging 
when Mr. Pierce's term drew to a close. His friends sought to 
obtain his nomination for a second term, but did not succeed. On 
the 4th of March, 1857, therefore, he retired to his home at Concord. 
That home, already bereaved by the loss of three promising boys, — 
his only children, — was now to have a still greater loss, — that of the 
wife and afflicted mother, who, grief-stricken at the sudden death, by 
a railroad accident, of her last boy, sunk under consumption, leaving 
Mr. Pierce alone in the world — wifeless as well as childless. 

The sorrowing ex-president presently took a trip to Madeira, and 
made a protracted tour in Europe, returning home in 1860. During 
the civil war, he delivered in Concord a speech, still known as *'the 
Mausoleum of Hearts speech," in which he is regarded as having 
expressed a certain sympathy for the confederates. He died at Con- 
cord, on the 8th of October, 18G9. 



JAMES BUCHANAN, 



12 FIFTEENTH President of tlie United States, was born in 
p-E) Franklin County, Pa., April 22, 1791. His father, a native 
of the north of Ireland, who had come eight years before to 
America, with no capital but his strong arms and energetic spirit, 
was yet able to give the bright and studious boy a good collegiate 
education, with which he began the study of law at Lancaster, and, 
after a three years' course, was admitted to practice, in 1812. He 
rose rapidly in his profession, the business of which increased with 
his reputation, so that, at the age of forty, he was enabled to retire 
with an ample fortune. 

Mr. Buchanan early entered into politics. TThen but twenty-three 
years old, he was elected to the legislature of Pennsylvania. Though 
an avowed federalist, he not only spoke in favor of a vigorous prose- 
cution of the war of 1812, but likewise marched as a private soldier 
to the defense of Baltimore. In 1820, he was elected to the lower 
house of congress, where he speedily attained eminence as a finished 
and energetic speaker. His political views are shown in the follow- 
ing extract from one of his speeches in congress : '' If I know myself, 
I am a politician neither of the west nor the east, of the north nor of 
the south. I therefore shall forever avoid any expressions, the direct 
tendency of which must be to create sectional jealousies, and at 
length disunion — that worst of all political calamities." That ho 
insincerely endeavored in his future career to act in accordance with 
the principles here enunciated, no candid mind can doubt, however 
much he may be regarded to have failed in doing so, especially during 
the eventful last months of his administration. 

In 1831, at the close of his fifth term, ]\rr. Buchanan, having de- 

49 



50 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

clined a re-election to congress, was sent as minister-plenipotentiary 
to St. Petersburg, where lie concluded the first commercial treaty 
between the United States and Russia. On his return home in 1833, 
he was elected to the national senate. Here he became one of the 
leading spirits among the supporters of President Jackson. His 
last act as a senator was to report favorably on the admission of 
Texas, he being the only member of the committee on foreign rela- 
tions to do so. 

On the election of Polk to the presidency, Mr. Buchanan was 
selected to fill the important position of secretary of state. At the 
close of Polk's term, he withdrew to private life; but was subse. 
quently sent by President Pierce as our minister to England. It 
was while acting in this capacity, that he united with Mason and 
Soule in the once celebrated "Ostend Manifesto," in which strong 
ground was taken in favor of the annexation of Cuba to the United 
States, by purchase, if possible, but, if necessary, by force. 

Returning home in 1856, he was nominated as the Democratic 
candidate for the presidency, and, after a stormy campaign, elected, 
receiving 174 out of 296 electoral votes. Pie was inaugurated on the 
4th of March, 1857. With the exception of a slight difficulty with 
the Mormons in Utah, and of the admission into the union of Min- 
nesota in 1858, and of Oregon in 1859, the chief interest of Mr. 
Buchanan's administration centered around the slavery controversy. 
At the time of his inauguration, it is true, the country looked confi- 
dently forward to a period of political quiet. But, unhappily, the 
Kansas difficulty had not been settled. The free-state party in that 
territory refused obedience to the laws passed by the local legislature, 
on the ground that that legislature had been elected by fraudulent 
means. They even chose a rival legislature, which, however, the 
president refused to recognize. Meanwhile the so-called regular 
legislature, which congress had sanctioned, passed a bill for the elec- 
tion of delegates by the people to frame a state constitution for 
Kansas. An election was accordingly held; the convention met, 
and, after a stormy and protracted session, completed its work. The 
Lecompton constitution, as it was called, when laid before congress, 
met with strong opposition from the Republicans, on the ground that 
it had been fraudulently concocted. The president, however, gave 
it all his influence, believing that it would bring peace to the country, 
while not preventing Kansas from being a free state, should its peo- 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 51 

pie so desire ; and, finally, after a struggle of extraordinary violence 
and duration, it received the sanction of congress. 

But quiet was not restored. In the north, the feeling against the 
president and his party became intense. The election in 1860 re- 
sulted in the triumph of Abraham Lincoln, the Eepublican candidate 
for the presidency. The period between Lincoln's election and his 
inauguration was one of peculiar trial to President Buchanan. An 
attempt to incite a slave insurrection, made at Harper's Ferry, in 
1859, by John Brown, of Kansas, for which he was hanged by the 
authorities of Yirginia, had created a profound sensation in the 
south, where it was regarded by many as indicative of the fixed pur- 
pose of the north to destroy slavery at all hazards. The election of 
Lincoln following so soon after this event, added strength to their 
apprehensions. As soon as the result of the canvass became known, 
South Carolina seceded from the union. Mr. Buchanan, apparently 
regarding the fears and complaints of the south as not without some 
just grounds, seems to have endeavored to bring about a peaceful 
solution of the difiQculties before him by attempts at conciliation. 
But however good his intentions may have been, his policy, which 
has been characterized as weak, vacillating, and cowardly, so signally 
failed, that, when, on the 4th of March, 1861, he retired from the 
presidency, he handed over to his successor an almost hopelessly 
divided union, from which seven states had seceded. 

Eemaining in Washington long enough to witness the installation 
of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Buchanan withdrew to the privacy of Wheat- 
land, his country home, near Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. Here he 
spent the remainder of his days, taking no prominent part in public 
afi'airs. In 1866, he published a volume entitled ''Mr. Buchanan's 
Administration," in which he explained and defended the jDolicy he 
had pursued while in the presidential office. He died at AVheatland, 
on the 1st of June, 1868. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

^^IXTEENTH President of the Union, was born in Hardin 
County, Kentucky, on the 12th of February, 1809. His 
parents were extremely poor, and could give him but scant 
opportunities of education. He was taught to read and write by 
his mother, a woman of intelligence far above her humble station. 
When he was in his eighth year, the family removed to the then 
wilderness of Spencer County. Indiana, where, in the course of three 
or four years, the boy Abraham, who was quick and eager to learn, 
had a chance to acquire the rudiments of the more ordinary branches 
of such a common school education as was to be obtained in that 
rude, frontier district. At the age of nineteen, he, with another 
youth of about the same age. set out, in a flat-boat, containing a 
cargo of considerable value, on a voyage to Xew Orleans. TThile 
passing down the Mississippi, they were attacked by a thieving band 
of negroes, but courageously beat off the robbers, and succeeded in 
reaching their destination safely. 

In 1830, the elder Lincoln removed to Decatur County, Illinois. 
Here Abraham assisted his father in establishing himself in his new 
home. It was on this occasion that he split the famous rails, from 
which, years after, he received his 23artisan name of •' the rail-splitter.'' 
During the severe winter which followed, by his exertions and skill 
as a hunter, he contributed greatly in keeping the family from starva- 
tion. The next two years he passed through as a farm-hand, and as 
a clerk in a country store. In the Black-Hawk war, which broke 
out in 1832, he served creditably as a volunteer . and. on his return 
home, ran for the legislature, but was defeated. He next tried store- 
keeping, but failed ; and then, having learned something of surveying, 
52 



ABRAHA21 LINCOLN, 53 

worked two or three years quite siiccessfullT as a surveyor for the 
government. In 1834, he was elected to the legislature, and soon 
after took up the study of law, being finally admitted to the bar in 
1837, when he removed to Springfield, and began to practice. • He 
rose rapidly in his profession, to which, ha^dng served a second term 
in the legislature, he devoted himself assiduously till 1844, during 
which year he canvassed the state in behalf of Mr. Clay, the Whig 
candidate for the presidency. In 1847, he took his seat in the lower 
house of congress, where he was the only Whig from the whole state 
of Illinois. Serving but a single term in congress, Mr. Lincoln, in 
1848, canvassed the state for Gen. Taylor, and, the following year, 
was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the United States senate. 
He now renewed his devotion to his legal pursuits, yet still retained 
a deep interest in national politics. 

The repeal of the Missouri compromise, which created a profound 
sensation throughout the entire north, brought about a complete 
political revolution in Illinois, and the state went over to the Whigs. 
In this revolution Mr. Lincoln took a most active part, and gained 
a wide reputation as an efi'ective stump-speaker. In 1856, he was 
brought prominently before the first Eepublican national convention, 
and came very near being nominated as its candidate for the vice- 
presidency. In 1858, as EepubLLcan candidate for United States 
senator, he canvassed Illinois in opposition to Judge Douglas, the 
Democratic nominee. Douglas was, perhaps, one of the most effec- 
tive public speakers of the time, yet it is generally conceded that 
Lincoln, though he failed to obtain the senatorship, was fully ec^ual 
to his distinguished and no doubt more polished opponent. 

During the next eighteen months, Mr. Lincoln visited various parts 
of the country, delivering speeches of marked ability and power; and 
when, in May, 1860, the Eepublican national convention met at 
Chicago, he was, on the third ballot, chosen as its candidate for the 
presidency. In consequence of a division in the Democratic party, 
he was elected, receiving 180 out of 303 electoral votes. In the 
popular vote, the result was as follows: Lincoln, 1,887,610; Doug- 
las, 1,291,574; Breckenridge, pro-slavery Democrat, 880,082; Bell, 
Constitutional-union party, 646,124: thus leaving Lincoln in the 
minority of nearly a million. 

The election of Lincoln was at once made by the extreme pro- 
slavery agitators of the south a pretext for dissolving the union. 



54 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Though he had repeatedly declared his intention not to interfere 
with the existing institutions of the south, and to hold inviolate his 
official oath to maintain the constitution, all was of no avail to dis- 
suade them from what seems to have been their pre-determined 
purpose. A month before he was inaugurated, six southern states, 
having solemnly withdrawn from the union, met in convention, and 
framed the constitution of a new and independent confederacy. 

The president elect left his home in Springfield on the 11th of 
February, 1861, and proceeded by a somewhat circuitous route to 
Washington, delivering short, pithy addresses in the larger towns 
and cities through which he passed. He also visited the legislatures 
of several northern states, everywhere reiterating his purpose, while 
not disturbing the domestic relations of the south, to maintain the 
union intact at all hazards. Though informed at Philadelphia that 
a plot had been formed for his assassination, he reached Washington 
without molestation, and on the 4th of March was duly inaugurated, 
in the presence of an immense assemblage from all parts of the 
country. 

In his inaugural address the new president, assuring the people of 
the south that he had taken the oath to support the constitution un- 
reservedly, and that there were no grounds for any fear that ''their 
property," peace, or persons, were to be endangered, he yet declared 
it to be his firm intention to execute the laws, collect duties and im- 
posts, and to hold the public properties in all the states, with no 
bloodshed, however, unless it should be forced upon the national 
authority. 

On entering upon the duties of his office, Mr. Lincoln found the 
condition of affairs far from encouraging. Seven states had already 
withdrawn from the union, and others were preparing to follow their 
example. The credit of the government was low ; the army and 
navy not only small and inefficient, but scattered all through our 
wide domain; and the greater part of the public arms, through the 
treachery of certain officials, in the possession of the seceded states. 
Still, he was hopeful and buoyant, and believed that the pending 
difficulties would soon be adjusted. Even when, on the 14th of 
April, 1861, the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, by a 
confederate army, roused the north to intense action, though he im- 
mediately issued a call for 75,000 volunteers, it was seemingly with 
but a faint idea that they would be needed. The fact that they were 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 

summoned for only three months — a period far from long enough for 
the organization of so large a body of men— is of itself sufficient 
evidence of the delusion under which he was laboring. 

The battle of Bull-run, on the 21st of July, 1861, which resulted 
in the total route of the government forces, in a great measure dis- 
pelled this delusion. The real magnitude of the contest now began 
to show itself to Mr. Lincoln. Yet his courage never faltered, nor 
was he less hopeful of the final triumph of the union. Cheerfully 
accepting the burden of cares and responsibilities so suddenly thrown 
upon him, he put his whole heart in the work before him, and not 
even the disasters of 1862, that gloomiest year of the war, could for 
a moment shake his confiding spirit. People were not wanting who 
found fault with the buoyant temper he displayed at that period; 
but his apparent cheeriness was of as much avail as our armies in 
bringing about the triumph which at last came. 

Of the history of the struggle Avhich resulted in this triumph, we 
shall here give no details, only referring briefly to some of the more 
important actions of the president. The most momentous of these, 
without doubt, was the emancipation proclamation, issued on the 
22d of September, 1862, and to take efiect on the first of January, 
1863, by which slavery was at once and forever done away with in 
the United States. In his message to congress, the president thus 
explains this act ; ^' In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom 
to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. 
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. . . 
The way is plain, peaceful, glorious, just — a way, which, if followed, 
the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." 

In 1864, by a respectable majority in the popular vote, and a large 
one in the electoral college, Mr. Lincoln was re-elected to the presi- 
dency. At the period of his second inauguration, the complete 
triumph of the federal authority over the seceded states was assured. 
The last battles of the war had been fought. War had substantially 
ceased. The president was looking forward to the more congenial 
work of pacification. How he designed to carry out this work, we 
may judge from the following passage in his second inaugural: 
" With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in thB 
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him vv^ho 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do 



56 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

all wliicli may acMeve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among 
ourselves and with all nations." 

Unfortunately the kind-hearted Lincoln was not to carry out the 
work of pacification to which he looked forward with such bright 
anticipations. But a little more than a month after his second in- 
auguration — on the night of the 14th of April, 1865 — John T^^ilkes 
Booth, one of a small band of desperate conspirators, as insanely 
foolish as they were wicked, fired a pistol ball into the brain of the 
president, as he sat in his box at the theatre. The wound proved 
fatal in a few hours, Mr. Lincoln never recovering his consciousness. 

The excitement which the assassination of the president occa- 
sioned was most intense. The whole country was in tears. Nor 
was this grief confined to our own people. England, France, all 
Europe, and even the far-ofiT countries of China and Japan, joined 
in the lamentation. Never was man more universally mourned, or 
more deserving of such wide-spread sorrow. 

The funeral honors bestowed upon the murdered president were 
grand and imposing. His body, having been embalmed, was taken 
to his home at Springfield, Illinois, passing through Baltimore, Phil- 
adelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, and other 
large towns and cities. The entire road seemed to be Hned with 
mourners, while in the chief cities the funeral ceremonies were equally 
solemn and magnificent. 

At Philadelphia, the body lay in state in Independence Hall, where 
it was visited by an immense concourse of people, the line extending 
from the Delaware to the Schuylkill, a distance of nearly three miles, 
and thousands of persons waiting for three or four hours their turn 
to pass through the hall. Similar scenes were witnessed at the other 
great cities, as weU as at Springfield, where, during the night previous 
to the final interment of his remains, nearly a hundred thousand peo- 
ple paid the last solemn tribute of respect to the fallen president. 





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mrnm^ 


IJ^H 


^^&m^^^^ 



ANDREV/ JOHNSON, 

•^n^HE constitutional successor to President Lincoln, was born in 

^^ Raleigh, N. C, Dec. 29, 1808. Prevented by the poverty of 
his parents from receiving any schooling, he was apprenticed, 
at the age of ten, to a tailor. On the expiration of his apprentice- 
ship, he went to G-reenville, Tenn., where he married. By his wife 
he was taught to write and to cypher, having already learned to read. , 
Taking considerable interest in local politics, he formed a working- 
man's party in the town, by which he was elected alderman, and 
afterwards mayor. In 1835, he was elected to a seat in the legisla- 
ture. Failing of re-election in 1837, he was again successful in 1839; 
and, in 1841, was elected to the state senate. His ability was now 
recognized, and, in 1843, he was sent to congress. Having served 
five successive terms in congress, he was, in 1853, elected governor 
of the state, and again, in 1855. Two years later, he was called 
upon to represent Tennessee in the United States senate, where he 
speedily rose to distinction as a man of great native energy. The 
free homestead bill, giving 160 acres of the public land to every 
citizen who would settle upon it and cultivate it a certain number of 
years, owes its passage to his persistent advocacy. On the slavery 
question he generally went with the Democratic party, accepting 
slavery as an existing institution, protected by the constitution. 

In the presidential canvass of 1860, Mr. Johnson was a supporter 
of Breckinridge ; but took strong grounds against secession, when 
that subject came up. His own state having voted itself out of the 
union, it was at the peril of his life that he returned home in 1861. 
Attacked by a mob, on a railroad car, he boldly faced his assailants, 
pistol in hand, and they slunk away. On the 4th of March. 1862, 

57 



58 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

he was appointed military governor of Tennessee. He entered upon 
tlie duties of his office witli a courage and vigor tliat soon entirely 
reversed the condition of affairs in the state. By March, 1864, he 
had so far restored order, that elections were held for state and 
county officers, and the usual machinery of civil government was 
once more set in motion. 

On the 4th of March, 1865, Mr. Johnson was inaugurated as vice- 
president of the United States. The assassination of President Lin- 
coln a little more than a month afterwards, placed him, as we have 
seen, in the vacant chief executive chair. Though Mr. Johnson 
made no distinct pledges, it was thought by the tone of his inaugural, 
that be would pursue a severe course towards the seceded states. 
Yet the broad policy of restoration he finally adopted, met the 
earnest disapproval of the great party by which he had been elected. 
The main point at issue was, "whether the seceded states should be 
at once admitted to representation in congress, and resume all the 
rights they had enjoyed before the civil war, without further guaran- 
tees than the surrender of their armies, and with no provision for 
protecting the emancipated blacks/' 

Johnson, opposed to making any restrictive conditions, therefore, 
vetoed the various reconstructive measures adopted by congress. 
Though these measures were finally passed over the president's 
vetoes, his determined opposition to their policy, on the ground that 
it was unconstitutional, gave congress great offence. This feeling 
finally became so intense, that the house of representatives brought 
articles of impeachment against him. The trial — the first of its kind 
known in our history — was conducted by the United States senate, 
presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The im- 
peachment failed, however; yet only lacked one vote of the two- 
thirds majority requisite to the president's conviction. 

From this period to the close of his term, March 4, 1869, the presi- 
dent was allowed to pursue his own policy with but little opposition. 
Eetiring to his home at Greenville, he began anew to take an active 
part in the politics of his state. It required several years, however, 
for him to regain anything like his earlier popularity; but finally, in 
January, 1875, he succeeded in securing his election once more to 
the senate of the United States ; but died on the 30th of the follow- 
ing July. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



"ISTORY has recorded few instances of tlie rapid and unex- 
li^JL pected rise of individuals in liumble circumstances to the 
highest positions, more remarkable than that afforded by the 
life of Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth President of the United 
States. Fifteen years ago, he was an obscure leather-dealer in Ga- 
lena, Illinois, with, probably, no ambition beyond that of becoming- 
one day the head of the business, in which he was then a mere part- 
ner by courtesy, or by paternal favor. Moreover, he was already 
past the period of life in which men usually make their upward way 
in the world. Born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, 
Ohio, the son of a well-to-do and thrifty tanner, he had passed, by a 
conjunction of favoring circumstances, from the bark-mill of his 
father's tannery to the military academy at West Point. Graduating 
from that institution in 1843, the 21st in a class of 39, he had signal- 
ized himself by his bravery in the Mexican war, being rewarded 
therefor by a captain's commission ; had married, and, after speeding 
several years with his regiment in California and Oregon, had left 
the service ; tried farming and the real-estate business with moderate 
success, and, finally, had been taken by his father as a partner in a 
leather store, at Galena. 

He was yet thus humbly employed, when President Lincoln issued 
his call for 75,000 three months' men. Marching to Springfield at 
the head of a company of volunteers, his military knowledge made 
him useful to Governor Yates, who retained him as mustering officer, 
until he was commissioned colonel of the 21st regiment of Illinois 
volunteers, on the 17th of June, 1861. The following August, hav- 

59 



60 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

ing been made a brigadier-general, he took command at Cairo, where 
he displayed much activity, and attracted some attention. On the 
7th of November he fought the battle of Belmont, where he had a 
horse shot under him. His capture of Fort Donelson, with all its 
defenders, on the 15th of February, 1862, after a severe battle result- 
ing in the first real and substantial triumph of the war, at once gave 
Grant a national reputation. For this brilliant victory, he was re- 
warded by a commission as major-general of volunteers. 

Soon after the capture of Donelson, General Grant was placed in 
command of an important expedition up the Tennessee Eiver. At 
Pittsburg Landing, while preparing for an attack on Corinth, a part 
of his army was surprised, at daybreak of the 6th of April, by an 
overwhelming force of confederates, and driven from their camp with 
w«?evere loss. Eallying his men that evening under the protection of 
the gun-boats. Grant, having been re-enforced during the night, re- 
newed the battle the following morning, and, after an obstinate con- 
test, compelled the enemy to fall back upon Corinth. 

In July, General Grant was placed in command of the department 
of West Tennessee, with his headquarters at Corinth, which the 
confederates had evacuated in the previous May. On the 19th of 
September he gained a complete victory over the confederates at 
luka, and then removed his headquarters to Jackson, Tennessee. 
Yicksburg, on the Mississippi, hav'ng been strongly fortified and 
garrisoned by the enemy, the duty of taking that place devolved 
upon Grant. After several attempts against it from the north, all 
of which resulted more or less disastrously, he finally moved his army 
down the west bank of the river, and, crossing to the east side, at a 
point below the city, began, on the 18th of May, 1863, a formal siege, 
which lasted until the 4th of the ensuing July, when the place was 
surrendered, with nearly thirty thousand prisoners, and an immense 
amount of military stores. 

Grant's capture of Yicksburg, the result of that tenacity of pur- 
pose which is a marked trait in his character, was hailed with 
unbounded delight by the whole country. He was immediately 
commissioned a major-general in the regular army, and placed in 
command of the entire military division of the Mississippi. Con- 
gress also, meeting in December, ordered a gold medal to be struck 
for him, and passed resolutions of thanks to him and his army. Still 
further, a bill reviving the grade of lieutenant-general was passed, 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 61 

and, on the 1st of March, 1864, Grant was appointed by President 
Lincoln to the position thus created. 

Having now been placed at the head of an army of 700,000 men, 
Grant, announcing that his headquarters would be in the field, ''at 
once planned two movements, to be directed simultaneously against 
vital points of the confederacy." One of these, with Eichmond for 
its point of attack, he commanded in person; the other, against At- 
lanta, in Georgia, was headed by General Sherman. 

On the 3d of May, Grant began the movement against Eichmond, 
crossing the Eapidan, and pushing determinedly into the -'wilder- 
ness," where, met by Lee, a bloody battle was fought, foiling his first 
attempt to place himself between the confederate army and their 
threatened capital. Advancing by the left flank, he was again con- 
fronted by Lee, at Spottsylvania, and compelled to make another 
flank movement, resulting in his again being brought to a stand by 
his wary antagonist. Declaring his determination ''to fight it out on 
this line, if it took him all summer," Grant still pushed on by a series 
of flank movements, each culminating in a sanguinary battle, in 
which his losses were fearful, and, finally, passing Eichmond on the 
east, crossed the James, and laid siege to the city of Petersburg, the 
capture of which now became the great problem of the war. 

Grant crossed the James on the 15th of June, 1864. It was not 
until the beginning of April, 1865, after a series of desperate assaults, 
coming to a crisis in the battle of Five-Forks, in which Grant gained 
a crowning triumph, that Petersburg finally succumbed. The fall of 
Petersburg compelled Lee to evacuate Eichmond, with the meagre 
remnant of his army. He retreated westward towards Danville, fol- 
lowed closely by Grant. At the same time, Sherman, who had met 
with almost unparalleled success in his part of the concerted move- 
ment, marching triumphantly through Alabama and Georgia to the 
sea-coast, along which he swept northward, was threatening Lee 
from another quarter, so that, placed between two large armies, both 
flushed with victory, no other resource was left him than to surrender 
the thin remnant of his force. This he did, to Grant, at Appomattox 
Court House, on the 9th of April, 1865, and the " Great Eebellion" 
was thus virtually brought to a close. 

On the conclusion of the war, Grant made Washington his head- 
quarters, and was, in July, 1866, commissioned General of the United 
States army — a rank which had been specially created to do him 



62 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. - 

honor. In August, 1867, lie for awhile acted as secretary of war, ad 
interim^ under President Johnson ; but, notwithstanding the hitter's 
earnest request to the contrary, restored the position to Mr. Stanton, 
from whom it had been taken, when the senate refused to sanction 
that gentleman's removal. 

In the Eepublican national convention, held at Chicago, on the 
21st of May, 18G8, General Grant w^as on the first ballot unanimously 
nominated as the candidate of that party for the presidency. His 
Democratic competitor was Horatio Seymour, of New York. The 
election resulted in his receiving 214 out of 294 electoral votes. He 
was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1869. Though brought into 
conflict with some of the prominent men of his party, by his deter- 
mined effort to bring about the annexation of San Domingo to the 
United States, President Grant's first official term gave satisfaction 
to the mass of his Eepublican adherents, by whom, in their national 
convention at Philadelphia, on the 5th of June, 1872, he was nomi- 
nated for a second term by acclamation. His opponent on this 
occasion was Horace Greeley, who was supported by both the Demo- 
crats and the so-called Liberal Eepublicans. The election resulted 
in the success of General Grant, who received 268 out of the 348 
electoral votes cast. He was inaugurated a second time on the 4th 
of March, 1873, and consequently, his term of office will not expire 
until the 4th of March, 1877. 



CONSTITUTIO?( or THE MITED STATES. 

P^'ent into operation on the first Yv'ednesday in March, 1789.] 



PKEAZ^rBI^E. 

Vv'e, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, i:rovide for the com- 
mon defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Con- 
stitution for the United States of America. 

ARTICLE I. 

OF TKE jLEGISLATITE POTVEH. 

Section 1. All legislative poTrers herein granted shall be vested in a 
Congress of the United States, Trhich shall consist of a Senate and House 
of Representatives. 

OF THE HOUSE OF EEPEESEXTATTTES. 

Sec. 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the elec- 
tors in each State shall have the quaiiiications requisite for electors of the 
most numerous branch of the State Legislature. 

Xo person shall be a RejDresentative who shall not have attained to the 
age of tvrenty-five years, and been seven 3'ears a citizen of the United 
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in 
which he shall be chosen. 

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several 
States which may be included within this Union, according to their re- 
spective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole 
number of free persons, including those bound to service for a. term of 
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. 
The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first 
meeting of the Congress of the L'nited States, and within every stibsequent 
term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The num- 
ber of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but 
each State shall have at least one Representative; and, until such enume- 
ration shall be made, the State of Xew Hampshire shall be entitled to 
choose three, Massachusetts _eight. Rhode Island and Providence Planta- 
tions one, Connecticut five, ^vew York six, Xew Jersey four, Pennsylvania 
eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, 
South Carolina five and Georgia- three. 

When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the execu- 
tive atithority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. 

The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other offi- 
cers ; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

OF THE SE:XATE. 

Sec. 3. The Senate of the L'nited States shall be composed of two Senators 
from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years ; and each 
Senator shall have one vote. 

Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first 
election, they shall be divided as equallv as mav be into three classes. 
The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expira- 
tion of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fo'urth 
year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that 
one-third may be chosen every second year: and if vacancies happen by 
resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, 
the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next 
meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. 



(63) 



64 CONSTITUTIOy 

Ko person shall be a Senator who shall not haveattained to the age ol 
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the Lnited States, and who 
shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall 
be chosen. 

The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, 
but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and have a President i^'/'o 
tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise 
the^office of President of the L nited states. 

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. ^Tien 
sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or ainrmation. ^'hen the 
President of the L'nited States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and 
no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two- thirds of the 
members present. 

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to 
removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of 
honor, trust or profit, under the United States; but the party convicted 
shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictnient, trial, judgm.ent and 
punishment according to law. 

3IA^'XETl or EliECTrS-G 3rE:MBEES. 

Sec. 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators 
and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature 
thereof- but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such 
regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. 

CO>'GRESS TO ASSE^EBLE AXXT:AI.I.T. 

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meet- 
ing shall be on the first Monday in Deceinberj unless they shall by law 
appoint a different day. 

POWEKS. 

Sec. 5. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and quali- 
fications of its ovvn members, and a majority of eucli shall con&tiiute a 
quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to 
day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, 
in such manner, and under such penalties, as each house may provide. 

Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its mem- 
bers for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, 
expel a member. 

Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and fi'om time to 
time publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment, 
require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house 
on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered 
on the journal. 

Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the con- 
sent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place 
than that in which the two houses shall be silting. 

C03IPE^"■SATI0^^, ETC., 6F 'lEi'-rBESS. 

Sec. 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation 
for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the ireasury 
of the United States. They shall in all casses, except treason, felony and 
breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest 'during their attendance at 
the session of their respective houses, a.nd in going to and returning from 
the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be 
ciuestioned in any other place. 

i\ o Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was 
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the L nited 
States, which shall have been created, or the enioinments whereof shall 
have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office 
under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his 
continuance in office. 

:^rA:^^:^ER of passing piles, etc. 
Sec. 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Rei^re- 
sentatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on 
v>ther bills. 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 

Every bill ■which shall have passed the House of Representatives and 
the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of 
the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return 
it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who 
shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to recon- 
sider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house shall 
agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the 
other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved 
by tvro-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases 
the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the 
names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on 
the journal of each house respectively, if any bill shall not be returned 
by the President Vv'ithin ten days (Sunday excepted) after it shall have 
been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had 
signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in 
which case it shall not be a law. 

Every order, resolution or vote, to which the concurrence of the Senate 
and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of 
adjournment^!, shall be presented to the President of the United States; 
an-d before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being 
disapproved by him, shall be re-passed by two-thirds of the Senate and 
House of Repiesentatives, according to the rules a^nd limitations pre- 
scribed in the case of a bill. 

FOTVER OF CONGKESS. 

Sec. 8. The Congress shall have [power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense 
and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and 
excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several 
States, and with the Indian tribes ; 

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the 
subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix 
the standard of weights and measures ; 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and cur- 
rent coin of the United States; 

To establish post-ofhces and post-roads ; 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited 
times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective 
writings and discoveries ; 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court* 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, 
and offenses against the law of nations ; 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 
concerning captures on land and water; 

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use 
shall be for a longer term than two years ; 

To provide and maintain a navy; 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and navp.1 
forces ; 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections and repel invasions; 

To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such pal't of them as may be employed in the service of the 
United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the 
officers, and the authority of training the militia according the discipline 
prescribed by Congress; 

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such dis- 
trict (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular 
States, and the acceptance of Consrress, become the seat of the government 
of the United Stales, and to exel-cise like authority over all places pur- 
chased by the consent of the Legisaature of the State in which the same 
shall be, for the erection efforts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other 
needful buildings ; and 

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Con- 



6^ CONSTITUTION 

stitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or 
officer thereof. 

I.IMITATI0:> OF THE POT^^ERS OF COXGRESS. 

Sec. 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States 
novr existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a 
tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dol- 
lars for each person. 

The privilege of the writ of liabcas corpus shall not be suspended, unless 
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. 

jSTo bill of attainder or ex 'post facto lavr shall be passed. 

No capitation, or other direct'tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to 
the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken. 

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue 
to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, 
or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another. 

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of 
appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the 
receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from 
time to time. 

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States : and no person 
holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent 
of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any 
kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign State. 

LI3IITATI0X OF THE POWERS OF THE IXDrTIDrAL STATES. 

Sec. 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation; 
grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; 
make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; 
pass any iDill of'attainder, cz post facto law, or law impairing the obligation 
of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 

No State shall7 without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or 
duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary 
for executing its inspection laws ; and the net produce of all duties and 
imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the 
treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the re- 
vision and control of the Congress. 

No State shall, without the consent of CongTes^ lay any duty of tonnage, 
keep troops, or ships of war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, 
unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of 
delay. 

ARTICLE II, 

EXECUTIVE POWER. 

Sec. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United 
States of America. Tie shall hold his office during the term of four years, 
and together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected 
as follows : 

liA^^XER OF EEECTI2>-G. 

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may 
direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and 
RepresentatiA"es to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but 
no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit 
under the L^nited States, shall be appointed an elector. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for 
two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant with the 
same State as themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons 
voted for, and of the number of votes for each ; which list they shall sign 
and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the 
United States, directed to the President of the Senate^ The President of 
the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The 
person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such 
number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal 



K^ 



OF THE UNITED STATES, 67 

number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately 
choose by ballot one of them for President: and if no person have a 
majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in 
like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the 
votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having 
one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members 
from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be 
necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the 
rson having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the 
.""ice-President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal 
votes, the Senate shall choose from. them, by ballot the Vice-President, 

TIME OF CHOOSI^"G ELECTOKS. 
The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the 
day on which they shall give their votes ; which day shall be the same 
throughout the United States. 

WHO ELTGIBIiE. 

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States 
at the time of the a.doption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the 
office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who 
shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen 
years a resident within the United States. 

WHEN THE president's POWER DETOIiVES ON THE VICE-PRESIDENT. 

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resig- 
nation or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, 
the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress may by 
law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both 
of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act 
as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be 
removed, or a President shall be elected. 

PRESIDENT'S C03IPENSATI0N. 

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensa- 
tion which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period 
for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that 
period any other emolument from, the United States, or any of them. 

OATH. 
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following 
oath or affirmation : " I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that l will faithfully 
execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best 
of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United 
States." 

POWERS AND DUTIES. 

Sec. 2. The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when 
called into the actual service of the United States ; he may require the 
opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive de- 
partments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective 
offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences 
against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and 
he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls. Judges of 
the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose ap- 
pointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be 
established by law ; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of 
such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the 
Courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen 
during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall ex- 
pire at the end of their next session. 

Sec. 3. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of 
the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such mea- 



68 CONSTITUTION 

sures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary 
occasions, convene both houses, or either of them, and in case of disagree- 
ment between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may 
p^djourn them to such time as he shall think proper ; lie shall receive am- 
bassadors and other public ministers ; he shall take care that the lav/s be 
faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United 
States. 

OFFICEBS KEMOVED. 

Sec. 4. The President, Vice-President, and all civil ofQcers of the United 
States, shall be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction 
of, treason, bribery or other high crimes and m.isdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III. 

OF THE JUBICIAEY. 

Sec. 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one 
Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time 
to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the Supreme and infe- 
rior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at 
stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office. 

Sec. 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, 
arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under their authority ; to all cases affecting 
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty 
and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States 
shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; between 
a State and citizens of another State; between citizens of different States; 
between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different 
States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, apd foreign States, 
citizens or subjects. 

JUmSDICTION OF SUPREME COURT. 

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 
and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have 
original j urisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme 
Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such 
exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

OF TRIALS FOR CRIMES. 

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury ; 
and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have 
been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial 
shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed, 

OF TREASON. 

Sec 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying 
"war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and 
comfort. 

No person shall be convicted of treason unless oh the testimony of tv/o 
witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open Court. 

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, 
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, 
except during the life of the person attainted, 

ARTICLE IV. 

STATE ACTS. 

Sec. 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public 
acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Con- 
gress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, 
records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 

PRIVILEGES OF CITIZENS. 

Sec. 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States. 

A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime, who 
shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of 



OF THE UNITED STATES, 69 

the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, 
to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime, 

ETJXAWAYS TO BE DEI.IVERED UP. 

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor m.ay be due. 

XEW STATES. 

Sec. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this ITnio. . ; 
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any 
other State ; nor any State be formed by the j unction of two or more States, 
or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States 
concerned as well as of the Congress. 

TEimiTOEIAL AXD OTHER PROPERTY. 

The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting, the territory, or other property belonging to 
the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed 
as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State. 

Sec. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a 
republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against 
invasion; and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive 
(when the Legislature cannot be convened;, against domestic, violence. 

ARTICLE V. 

A3IE2irDMEKTS. 

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it'neces- 
sary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution ; or, on the applica- 
tion of the Legislatures of two- thirds of the several States, shall call a 
Convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be 
valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified 
by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conven- 
tions in three- fourths thereof, as tlie one or the other mode of ratification 
may be proposed by Congress; provided, that no amendment which may 
be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in 
any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth Section of the 
first Article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of 
its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI. 

DEBTS. 

All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption 
of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this 
Constitution as under the Confederation. 

SUPREME LAW OF THE EA:S-D. 

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be 
made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, 
under the authority of the L^nited States, shall be the supreme law of the 
land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in 
the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 

OATH.— NO RELIGIOUS TEST. 
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members 
of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial ofiicers, 
both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath 
or afilrmation to support this Constitution ; but no religious test shall ever 
be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under the 
United States. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The ratifications of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for 
the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the 
same. 

Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, 



70 CONSTITUTION 

the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United 
States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto sub- 
scribed our names. 

GEORGE Y7ASHIXGT0X, 
President, and Deputy from Virginia, 

ITew Hampshire — John Langdon, Nicholas Gilnian. 3fassachusefts — Xa- 
thaniel Gorham, Rufus Kin'g. Connecticut— Ys'illmm. Samuel Johnson, 
Roger Sherman. ^,ew yb^^'— Alexander Hamilton, ^^ezc" Je?'5ej/— William 
Livingston, David Brearley, William Patterson, Jonathan Dayton. Penn- 
«.z/?i;a/iia— Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George 
Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Governeur 
Morris. Delavjare— George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, 
Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom. Maryland— J o^rae^i ZnI' Henry, Daniel of St. 
Tho. Jenifer, Daniel Carroll. Virninia—^ohn Blair, James Madison, Jr. 
North Carolina— V7\\\miTi Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight. Hugh William- 
son. South Carolina— J olin Rutledge, Chas. Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles 
Pinckney, Pierce Butler. Qeo?'^jG:— William Few, Abraham Baldwin. 

Attest WiLLiAX Jackso2^, Secretary. 



AMEXDMEXTS TO THE COXSTITUTIOX. 

[The first ten amendments were proposed by Congress at their first session, in 
1789. The eleventh was proposed in 1794^ and"^the twelftli in 1803.] 

ARTICLE I. 

FREE EXEHCISE OF EEI.IGIOX. 

Congress shall make no la^v respecting an establishment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, 
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to 
petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE II. 

KIGHT TO BEAR .AR3IS. 

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, 
the right cf^the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. 

ARTICLE III. 
:^^o soei3ier to be bibbeteb, etc. 
Xo soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house withotit the 
consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed 
by law. 

ARTICLE IV. 

TJXREASOXABBE SEARCHES PROHIBITED. 

The riglft of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and 
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ; 
and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath 
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and 
the persons or things to be seized. 

ARTICLE V. 

CRI3IIXAE PROCEEDINGS. 

Xo person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous 
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in 
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual 
service, in time of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject 
for the same offense to be put twice in Jeopardy of life or limb : nor shall 
be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor 
be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor 
shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 

ARTICLE YI. 

MODE OF TRIAIi. 

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy 
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the 
crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previ- 
ously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of 
the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor ; and to have tha 
assistance of counsel for his defense. 

AKTICLE YII. 

KIGHT OF TRIAIi BY JURY. 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed 
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact 
tried by jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United 
States than according to the rules of the common law. 

ARTICLE VIIL 

BAIL.— FIXES. 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor 
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

ARTICLE IX. 

RIGHTS XOT EXU3IERATED. 

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be con- 
strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

ARTICLE X. 

POWERS RESERVED, 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the'States, are reserved to the States respectively or to 
the people. 

ARTICLE XI. 

LIMITATION OF JUDICIAL POWER. 

The judicial power of the L^nited States shall not be construed to extend 
to any suit in law or equity commenced or jDrosecuted against one of the 
United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of 
another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State., 

ARTICLE XII. 

^ ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for 
President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an in- 
habitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their 
ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person 
voted for as Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all per- 
sons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, 
and of the number of votes for each, which list they shall sign and certify, 
and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the L'nited States, 
directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, 
in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the 
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; the person having the 
greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such 
number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if 
no person have such a majority, then from the persons having the highest 
numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, 
the House of Representatives shall choose immediately by ballot the 
President. But in choosing the President, the vote shall be taken by 
States, the representatives from each State having one vote; a quorum 
for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of 
the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. 
And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President when- 
ever the right of choice shall devolve upoa them, before the fourth day of 
March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as 



72 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

in the case of the death or other Constitutional disability of the Presi- 
dent. 

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President shall 
bo the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number 
of electors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then from the 
two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; 
a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number 
of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necssary to a 
choice. 

But no Tjerson Constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall 
be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. 

[Ratified in 1865.] 
ARTICLE XIII. 

Sec. 1. Neither Slavery nor involuntary servi:ude, except as a punish- 
ment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate 
legislation. 

[Ratified in 1868.] 
ARTICLE XIV. 

Sec. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the L'nited States, and subject 
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the 
State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any lav\' which 
shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the L^nited 
States. Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, 
without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction 
the equal protection of the laws. 

Sec. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several Slates 
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of per- 
sons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed; but whenever the right 
to vote at any election for electors of President and Vice-President, or 
United States Representatives in Congress, executive and judicial officers, 
or the members of the Legislature therof, is denied to any of the male in- 
habitants of such State, being twenty-one years of aee, and citizens of the 
United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion 
or other crimes, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the 
proportion which the numbe'r of such male citizens shall bear to the 
whole number of male citizens twentv-one years of age in that State. 

Sec. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, 
elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or mili- 
tary, under the United States, or under any State, who, having pi'eviously 
taken an oath as a member of Congrress, or as an officer of the United 
States, or as a member of anv State Legislature, or as an executive or judi- 
cial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the L'nited States, 
shall have enaraged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given 
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; but Congress may, by a vote of two- 
thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

Sec. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States authorized 
by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties 
for service in sunpressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be ques- 
tioned ; but neither the United States nor any State shall assume to pay 
any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against 
the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave, 
but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be illegal and void. 

Sec. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis- 
lation, the provisions of this article, 

[Ratified in 1870.] 
ARTICLE XV. 
Sec. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be 
denied or abridged by the L^nited States, or by any State, on account of 
race, color or previous condition of servitude. 

Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appro- 
priate legislation. 



/ 

PRICE, 25 CENTS. 



A Century of Presidents. 



LIVES AND PORTRAITS 



All the Presidents 




CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON. 

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TO WHICH IS ADDED THE 

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, 

WITH ALL THE AMENDMENTS. 



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T. S. ARTHUR & SON, 

1129 Chestnut Street, Philada., Pa. 



"THE HOUSEHOLD MAGAZINE OF AMERICA." 



ARTHUR'S 
Illustrated Home Magazine, 



The Home Magazine is \ and an interest in humanity. 

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varied Departments. 

P A TT P^PT TrPP ^ ^^^^ Serial Story, by Miis. Julta C. R. Dorr, author of "Sybil 

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WfBf AM ^^^ '^^^ hiTE She Latp Down, a new Serial Story by T. S. Authur. will 

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THP ^TflP V TPT T PB '^^^^ department will contain besides the above, a large 

I All Ml vivi "■■■■■ifi number of shorterstories from some of our best writers 

WOMAN'S mil in the WORLD. ^^^u^tVaf=sA^nd^"i•,u^e."•^""^^• 

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Ufflf P APHV History, Poetry, Stories and Sketches of Home-life and charac- 
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PtfPWfWff! WfTT!f fUP BftPfC This Department contains chdice-seleetions 
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WflTf^PVPPWPC' T\PPAPTMfWT To be full and practical as ever. Contri- 
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ILLUSTRATIONS OF NATURAL HISTORY. ^i^T^^OS'^S.^ 

be largely'- and beautifully illustrated, and made attractive to all classes of readers, 
young and old. 



fPWTPWWTAT WnTP5 and ILLUSTEATIONS. TheHomeMagazine will have de 
y&iiUuiilJiUAM iNUltiW scriptions and pictorial illustrations <.f th( 
tennial Exhibition to be held in Philadelphia during the year 1876. 

THS HOTHERS' DEPARTMENT '^"' "'• '^'^'^/^''y .^'^''^•^•.^p'l ."«^« ^"gs«^: 



scriptions and pictorial illustrations of the great Cen- 
""' iladelphia during the year 1876. 

Will be carefully edited, and have sugges- 
tive articles from thoughtful and experien'ced 
writers. 

UTITfPPTnVfl nevvest patterns for ladies' and Children's dresses are given in 
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Tevfns: $2.50 a Year, 3 copies for $6.59; 6 copies and one to getter up of 
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As the Home Magazine circulates largely in all parts of the United States, it offers 
O'te of the best genet al Advertising Mediums in the country. Dealers suppUai bt/ 
American News Co. For Sale by News Agents. 

T. S. ARTHUR & SON, 

1129 Chestnut St., Phila., Pa, 





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